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.