When a terrorist attack is committed, the public — the innocent victims — need to understand why.
This remark came from ethics scholar and chair of the journalism department Deni Elliot as she led a conversation about Rolling Stone’s September issue.
When the magazine featured Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover, millions of Americans took offense. Last week, USF St. Petersburg students, staff and faculty discussed the publication’s controversial decision at the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, as the first installment of the Socrates in the Sandbar conversation series.
Sophie Erber, a journalism graduate student, began the talk, saying the Rolling Stone cover “glamorized” Tsarnaev, presenting him not as someone who did horrible things but “almost as a rock star.”
May Zayan, another journalism graduate student, said the cover was “inline with the genre of the publication.”
“It worked, because people did by it,” Zayan said.
Elliott disagreed.
“Retreating to, ‘well, it sells magazines,’ is not an ethical justification,” she said. Though she does not approve of the cover, she appreciates journalist Janet Reitman’s attempt at a careful, in-depth profile on Tsarnaev.
Elliot explained how photos used on TV news stations or running alongside articles in newspapers come with context, whereas the Rolling Stone cover did not.
“When you just see a picture on the cover, there’s a celebrity there,” she said. “It says, ‘Look at me, I’m someone worth looking at and appreciating.’”
Elliot cited the lyrics to “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” by Dr. Hook, which has become an anthem for the magazine: Wanna see my picture on the cover / Wanna buy five copies for my mother / Wanna see my smilin’ face / On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
She believes the lyrics portray the magazine’s cover as a spot designated for celebrities — people who are glamorous.
Daniel Figueroa, a mass communications senior, said the context actually made the cover photo OK for him.
“We’re looking at the person behind the monster. Monsters aren’t born, they’re created,” he said. “It reminded me that he was a person with opportunity and somewhere along the way, someone did fail him.”
David Snyder, a lawyer specializing in media law and a USFSP adjunct journalism professor, said being offended is a responsibility of society.
“If you don’t allow yourself to be offended, you don’t deserve to be a citizen of a free society,” he said.
Journalism and media studies graduate student Randy Carlson changed the subject to point out a discrepancy.
“There’s one thing getting lost in this conversation — [Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] was only the junior partner. His older brother [Tamerlan Tsarnaev] is arguably much more interesting in figuring out the motivation behind this,” he said, explaining that Rolling
Stone’s “over the top” presentation undermined the motivation for the act.
“There’s another part of this story … and it’s about the other guy,” Carlson said.
The rest of the group agreed the media focuses on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rather than his brother because he’s still here and can be talked to.
Carol Hixon, dean of the library, asked what the responsibility of a journalist is, claiming that with many journalists, especially on TV news stations, there is no balance.
So is it wrong that Rolling Stone presented a point of view?
Snyder suggested the public tends to differentiate themselves from bad people.
Was Rolling Stone trying to show that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t really so different?
Though it was widely agreed upon that media outlets have an obligation to their viewers, Snyder proposed that audiences have to take responsibility as well and seek different attitudes and viewpoints from the media.
The Socrates in the Sandbar series was designed to involve the entire USFSP community in reflecting on the past and present, and imagining the future through the lens of current events or issues of broad interest.
The next conversation is 9 a.m. Oct. 22 at the Campus Grind. Participants will discuss online classes.
