The cover of Rolling Stone magazine has most often been the domain of musicians, actors, comedians, and the occasional politician.
But this week, the periodical raised eyebrows by printing a rock-star-like picture of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Rolling Stone’s curious choice of cover art has prompted some stores to refuse selling the magazine.
The issue, which hits newsstands Friday, features an picture of an unsmiling Tsarnaev above the bolded legend “The Bomber.”
The subhead promises to reveal “[h]ow a popular, promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam, and became a monster.”
Rolling Stone has posted a blog entry featuring what it calls “five revelations” in the story, written by magazine contributing editor Janet Reitman.
Among the details disclosed are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s increasing devotion to Islam while still in high school, as well as his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible mental illness, which the boys’ mother decided would be better treated by Islam than by a psychiatrist.
Rolling Stone defended its controversial cover Wednesday afternoon.
“Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families,” according to a statement from the venerable magazine.
“The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day.”
Boston mayor Thomas Menino made his displeasure known this afternoon with a statement addressed to Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner.
“Your August 3 cover rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment. It is ill-conceived, at best, and re-affirms a terrible message that destruction gains fame for killers and their ’causes.’ There may be valuable journalism behind your sensational treatment, though we can’t know because almost all you released is the cover.
“To respond to you in anger is to feed into your obvious marketing strategy. So, I write to you instead to put the focus where you could have: on the brave and strong survivors and on the thousands of people — their family and friends, volunteers, first responders, doctors, nurses, and donors — who have come to their side. Among those we lost, those who survived, and those who help carry them forward, there are artists and musicians and dancers and writers. They have dreams and plans. They struggle and strive. The survivors of the Boston attacks deserve Rolling Stone cover stories, though I no longer feel that Rolling Stone deserves them.”
Rolling Stone’s recent covers have featured actor Johnny Depp and singers Rihanna and Justin Bieber.
The cover quickly drew a negative reaction on social media, with “Boycott Rolling Stone” becoming a trending Twitter topic in Boston.
Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin told MyFoxBoston.com that he feared the cover would simply add to the hype surrounding the case and send the wrong message to potentially disaffected people.
Two New England-based retailers announced today they will not carry the magazine in their stores: Woonsocket, R.I.-based pharmacy chain CVS, and a Rockland, Mass.-based convenience store chain, Tedeschi Food Shops.
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty in the April 15 bombings.
Rolling Stone said Tsarnaev’s age, 19, also played a role in its choice for the cover.
“The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens,” according to the mag.