Week 3 Individual Assignment - Rebuttal Paper
BCOM/275 – Critical Thinking
Patty Haynes
07/24/13
Virginia Carter

The Rolling Stone magazine has recently been met with a slew of angry outbursts and boycotting for placing the well-known, suspected Boston Bombing Terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover this month. The magazine is under scrutiny not just for placing his picture on the cover, but for how the picture portrays the suspect. Tsarnaev’s photo is a very glamorous, dreamy eyed, tousled hair, sexier version of himself in the photo. This glorified photo is exactly how The Rolling Stone portrays famous actors and rock stars that are meant to be admired.
Harold Maass is the executive editor for an online forum called The Week. He currently posted an article saying that The Rolling Stone shouldn’t be chastised for their choice and it is simply a ploy to sell heaps and heaps of magazines. He states that maybe we shouldn’t be so angry at The Rolling Stone publication because the New York Times posted it on their cover first. Maass also backs up Janet Reitman of The Rolling Stone saying that the only thing that happened here was that he happened to be a huge news feature, and features make the covers of publications. He also agrees with other authors that claim this could help the American public snap out of their daydreams and see that terrorists don’t have to be dirty, rag wearing, foreign language speaking, Muslims.
While all of these comments can be boiled down to just opinions, I believe they are all based on either defending their publications or just being controversial in order to have an article to write. Not one single aspect of their reasoning takes a look at how it will affect the masses other than making people want to shell out money to buy a publication or outrage a reader to where they remember the article written or the author who wrote it. Glamourizing an act such as bombing a famous marathon is extremely dangerous. Showing a ‘handsome’ photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a spot usually reserved for people that deserve the spot light is showing terrorists how easy it really is to be famous. Kill someone and you get the cover of The Rolling Stone.
Harold Maass also used to work for Fox News who is known as supporting Republican candidates financially. One can’t help but wonder if certain writers sway articles towards their political parties’ views as well. I was always taught never to put too much stock in articles written for publications because those writers are most definitely paid. Not only are they paid but, they also have a boss to report to at the end of day. No one knows exactly what happens in those types of offices. Maass boss could simply tell him to put a certain twist on a story or he’s fired.
Harold Maass also makes some of his points off of celebrity Twitter posts. Once again, celebrities are often swayed by political parties, money, and are rarely educated in the first place. Although he does show Twitter feeds supporting both sides of the argument. I believe saying that putting a terrorist on the cover is simply because it is a coincidence that he was the main news story at the time is an insult to the victims. Why didn’t they put Saddam Hussein on the cover when he died? Why did they not put Osama Bin Laden on the cover? They were undoubtedly the main news story above all else at certain points in time. It can probably be guaranteed they didn’t make the cover because they weren’t even close to attractive. Not because it was wrong to give them the fame they were seeking.

References
Maass, H. (2013, July 17). Does Rolling Stone's Tsarnaev cover glamorize terrorism? . The Week, p.1 .
Warren, L. (2013, July). Rolling Stone sales for controversial Boston bomber cover are UP by 20 per cent even though some shops refused to stock it. Mail Online, (), 1.