Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
They could do that, but the problem is that the young boy was probably like most young children and it would be hard for Rolling Stone to give that several pages. I think it is right that Rolling Stone gets criticised for its musical coverage and choice of covers, but politically they are really very good at times. Rolling Stone presents a portrait of how someone that seemed relatively normal turned over to a very dark side and I fail to see how that is not an interesting and insightful story and that is far more important than the cover. Most people looking at the cover wouldn't have given it a second thought have the mainstream media not blown it up into a big issue. Now still nobody has read the article and fanciful notions will have been provoked.

Kurt Cobain blew his own brains out thus potentially inviting copycats, maybe he should be banned from magazine covers too, and of course the media should never show photos of US Presidents who are responsible for the deaths of millions, or of Michael Jackson and his ever evolving face and love of little boys etc etc. It's a lot of double standards.

It's an insult to suggest that a photo could create terrorists and yet the foreign policies largely get swept under the rug. That is the real issue. If we are going to talk about victims, then also you have to extend it beyond the tiny numbers of American victims in the greater war on terror. I consider that equally worthy and perhaps moreso as I don't understand what Iraq had to do with 'terror' as the British government was advertising it. The faces of Blair and Bush create terrorists, this guy is next to nothing in the great scheme of things.

A tiny bit of it came home and the killers face is on a magazine. Is that really the big concern in the so called 'War on terror'? It's an interesting diversion, but in the great scheme of things, extremely small fry.
Why do you assume nobody has read the article ? The OP has read the article and said so. Many other posters here will be regular readers of RS ? It is an insult to suggest that a photograph could create terrorists but it is you and you alone who made that suggestion. Of course people would have looked at the cover and given it a second thought. You seem to portray yourself as an egalitarian whilst not even extending the most basic of courtesies and respect to other people. It offended the OP who like you ( and correct me if I am wrong @IamInuit ) can see the gaping holes and double standards exposed by a "war on terror" , but who nonetheless could be rational enough to see the cynicism of RS with it's poor editorial choices when it came to selecting images for it's cover. Kurt Cobain was a musician, evidently in a lot of physical and mental pain, who chose to turn a gun on himself, that is not the same thing and nobody is suggesting that glamorising or demonising a terrorist is going to produce copycats, (although it may). The issue is one of taste and common decency, it is trite and insensitive.

If you are truly concerned about the victims of violence you don't get to pick and choose those who deserve your empathy because of some misguided sense of loyalty to an underdog class that you have very little understanding of. This young man does not represent the victims of bombings in Iraq, no more than he represents the Chechen Muslims that are killing their brothers, or the Kurds who without the Iraq war would have been murdered in their thousands. He was ill educated, deluded and brainwashed, but the decision to turn his frustrations into violence, that he visited on innocent civilians, is his alone and one that he should bear the consequences for without the Rock Press profiting of his notoriety. Carry the story but put Jay-Z or Willie Nelson on the cover.