Don't stone 'Rolling Stone' over Boston bomber cover

Rem Rieder | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption What do Charles Manson and the Boston bomber have in common? | USA NOW video Desair Brown hosts USA NOW for July 17, 2013, covering the controversy behind the new Rolling Stone cover.

People reacted with outrage to the notion of a bombing suspect on the %22Rolling Stone%22 cover

%22Rolling Stone%22 has a tradition of featuring serious news as well as rock %27n%27 roll

Magazine covers are designed to attract attention and often stir up controversy

While the magazine may not have the cachet it did back in the day, "the cover of the Rolling Stone" has had an iconic role in American pop culture since Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show sang about their lust to be on it back in 1973.

So it's no surprise that Rolling Stone's decision to devote that hallowed real estate to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has triggered widespread outrage. Feelings about the hideous crime remain raw. Choosing as cover art a selfie of Tsarnaev with tousled hair and a vaguely come-hither expression rather than the aura of a fearsome alleged mass murderer didn't help, never mind that the photo has appeared everywhere, including on the front of The New York Times.

The comments in such venues as Twitter, Facebook and Boston.com are brutal, lambasting the magazine for glorifying terrorists and calling for readers to boycott it in the future.

But while it's understandable that people are upset by the attention to "Jahar," I'm not sure Rolling Stone is guilty of any journalistic war crimes.

Some commenters have wondered what a magazine that tends to feature on its covers musicians like, er, the Rolling Stones is trying to tell us by putting an alleged terrorist out there. But Rolling Stone has a long history of featuring serious news coverage as well as rock 'n' roll.

Just three years ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal lost his job as commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan because of an article in Rolling Stone that featured caustic comments about President Obama by the general and his aides. Back in the 1970s, it featured the groundbreaking political coverage of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. And, speaking of mass murderers, Charles Manson was once on the cover of Rolling Stone.

While the full text of the article isn't scheduled to be released until Friday, it hardly sounds like a puff piece. Here's the cover type: "THE BOMBER," followed by, "How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by his Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster."

I don't know about you, but to me calling somebody a monster doesn't sound much like glorifying him.

Rolling Stone posted five "revelations" from the article on its website and said the author, contributing writer Janet Reitman, had spent two months interviewing "dozens of sources" for the piece.

It sounds like a serious effort to find out what could impel a young man to kill indiscriminately. That's an important journalistic mission, not an effort to glamorize evil.

As for the cover itself, it has already achieved its goal even before appearing on a single newsstand. Magazine covers are designed to attract attention, and this one certainly has.

Editor Tina Brown established herself as a magazine megastar with her buzz-generating covers at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.

And magazine covers frequently stir up controversy. Often it's because they make some people uncomfortable: the breast-feeding mom on the cover of Time; a very pregnant and very naked Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair; Bert and Ernie snuggling on a couch as they watch the Supreme Court justices on TV (right after the Defense of Marriage Act decision) on the cover of The New Yorker.

And sometimes the brouhaha ensues because of journalistic malfeasance, as when Time darkened a picture of O.J. Simpson.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show saw their dreams come true. They made the cover of the Rolling Stone on March 29, 1973, with the caption: "What's-Their-Names Make The Cover."