Austin Cheda
9/17/13
Rolling Stone
Controversy
Journalism
In the Rolling Stone article about the
marathon bombings, Janet Reitman portrays Jahar a boy who had no bad
background, could do something so horrific to innocent people, leaving the
reader with more questions than answers. The reader was left thinking about
Jahar and wanting to know more about him, was he influenced by his brother, or
someone else? His brother might have had an influence on him. His brother often
was mean and hard on him. “All I know is Jahar was really wary of coming home
high because of how his brother would react. He’d get really angry,” says Will.
He was a really intense dude.” This may have been a contributing factor to
Jahar. But, it definitely wasn’t the main thing that could have made him do
something like this. The article mentioned how his friends said, “that his brother
made him do it”. This could not have been why he would do something like this
there has to be another explanation as to why he did it. The article also mentioned
that his friends were saying that he got framed by someone. They said in the
article that the FBI found a backpack that wasn’t like the one that he usually
had. His friends said, “That it wasn’t his usual backpack, someone must have
framed him”. What if he bought a different backpack just for this, so that no
one would recognize him? That way he could get around quickly without one of
his friends seeing him and stopping him to talk.
The cover
of the Rolling Stone for august, had the picture of Jahar’s face on it, below
his picture were the words “The Bomber”. This cover was very different from the
other people that are usually on the cover. Usually they are a popular
celebrity or someone that did something important. People are usually honored
to have their name and face on the cover. But, this cover was different from
ones like that. This cover almost didn’t make sense, because why would you put
some one that did something so horrific to so many people on the cover. The
cover also has words after it, the words are almost defending Jahar in some
way. The cover talks about how he was failed by his family and that he became a
monster. He may have had parents that left him. But, that alone wouldn’t be why
he would have done something so horrific. It may have been part of it, but
there had to have been some other explanation as to why he could do something
like this. Rolling Stone could have been making a point by putting him on the
cover. They could have been saying, “Hey we can put other things on the cover,
even if they aren’t someone famous or important”. That may be true, but was it
the right thing to do and how many people took it that same way. The article
also has a lot of views from Jahar’s friends weighing in on Jahar. They all
said that he was a good kid and they don’t know why he would have done
something like this. A few of his friends said that he had too have been framed
by someone else. Even if that’s true, then how could he have followed his
brother through the whole thing and known how to do the whole plan. He had to
have been with his brother from the beginning to know how to do everything. The
other interesting part of this article was the ending. It talks about how,
according to his nurse, Jahar cried for two days straight after he woke up in
the hospital. All his friends said that they could see doing that and they
hoped that he was crying after doing something like that. But, no one knows
exactly what Jahar was crying about.
Another article entitled, “Decision
to glorify bomber is what’s truly heartbreaking” by Carmen Rasmusen. It talks
about how Rolling stone could, “even think about putting an alleged murderer
into a rock star by plastering his “soulful brown eyes” on the front page”. The
article comes from a woman’s perspective and what she thinks about the cover of
the magazine. Some of her points make sense to what I think of the cover. But,
then some of them didn’t really make sense too me. I think that their is much
more to the case then what they have found out so far, about Jahar. The article
also talks about how even if he had a mental illness, it wouldn’t be why he was
a mass murderer. There would have too be some other aspect as to what was
really going through is mind leading up too that day.
The last article entitled, “Behind
Rolling Stone’s cover, a story worth reading”. It talks about more of the same
thing, but it has different points as well. For example, it talks about Sean
Murphy, a photographer with the Massachusetts
state police. He was furious about the Rolling Stone cover and accused the
magazine of “glamorizing the face of terror”. He was relieved of duty just
hours after he turned over hundreds of photos to the magazine. The article also
mentions how Jahar looked like any other normal American teenager. Except he
was on the cover of the Rolling Stone. It mentions the cover with the pretty
boy on the front appeared too have deep, nascent ugliness in his heart. The
article was just saying that there was clearly something else to Jahar that
maybe no one will ever know. He couldn’t have done what he did without being
messed up in some way. He might also have angry at someone or something that
was happening in the country or in the world. But that didn’t give him the
right to hurt many innocent people and it especially didn’t earn him the right
to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
