Critical Thinking Week 3 Rebuttal Paper
Week 3 Individual Assignment - Rebuttal Paper
BCOM/275 – Critical Thinking
Patty Haynes
07/24/13
Virginia Carter
The Rolling Stone magazine has recently been met with a slew of angry outbursts and boycotting for placing the well-known, suspected Boston Bombing Terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover this month. The magazine is under scrutiny not just for placing his picture on the cover, but for how the picture portrays the suspect. Tsarnaev’s photo is a very glamorous, dreamy eyed, tousled hair, sexier version of himself in the photo. This glorified photo is exactly how The Rolling Stone portrays famous actors and rock stars that are meant to be admired.
Harold Maass is the executive editor for an online forum called The Week. He currently posted an article saying that The Rolling Stone shouldn’t be chastised for their choice and it is simply a ploy to sell heaps and heaps of magazines. He states that maybe we shouldn’t be so angry at The Rolling Stone publication because the New York Times posted it on their cover first. Maass also backs up Janet Reitman of The Rolling Stone saying that the only thing that happened here was that he happened to be a huge news feature, and features make the covers of publications. He also agrees with other authors that claim this could help the American public snap out of their daydreams and see that terrorists don’t have to be dirty, rag wearing, foreign language speaking, Muslims.
While all of these comments can be boiled down to just opinions, I believe they are all based on either defending their publications or just being controversial in order to have an article to write. Not one single aspect of their reasoning takes a look at how it will affect the masses other than making people want to shell out money to buy a publication or outrage a reader to where they remember the article written or the author who wrote it. Glamourizing an act such as bombing a famous marathon is extremely dangerous. Showing a
BCOM/275 – Critical Thinking
Patty Haynes
07/24/13
Virginia Carter
The Rolling Stone magazine has recently been met with a slew of angry outbursts and boycotting for placing the well-known, suspected Boston Bombing Terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover this month. The magazine is under scrutiny not just for placing his picture on the cover, but for how the picture portrays the suspect. Tsarnaev’s photo is a very glamorous, dreamy eyed, tousled hair, sexier version of himself in the photo. This glorified photo is exactly how The Rolling Stone portrays famous actors and rock stars that are meant to be admired.
Harold Maass is the executive editor for an online forum called The Week. He currently posted an article saying that The Rolling Stone shouldn’t be chastised for their choice and it is simply a ploy to sell heaps and heaps of magazines. He states that maybe we shouldn’t be so angry at The Rolling Stone publication because the New York Times posted it on their cover first. Maass also backs up Janet Reitman of The Rolling Stone saying that the only thing that happened here was that he happened to be a huge news feature, and features make the covers of publications. He also agrees with other authors that claim this could help the American public snap out of their daydreams and see that terrorists don’t have to be dirty, rag wearing, foreign language speaking, Muslims.
While all of these comments can be boiled down to just opinions, I believe they are all based on either defending their publications or just being controversial in order to have an article to write. Not one single aspect of their reasoning takes a look at how it will affect the masses other than making people want to shell out money to buy a publication or outrage a reader to where they remember the article written or the author who wrote it. Glamourizing an act such as bombing a famous marathon is extremely dangerous. Showing a
References: Maass, H. (2013, July 17). Does Rolling Stone 's Tsarnaev cover glamorize terrorism? . The Week, p.1 . Warren, L. (2013, July). Rolling Stone sales for controversial Boston bomber cover are UP by 20 per cent even though some shops refused to stock it. Mail Online, (), 1.