The Face of Terror on Rolling Stone

One of the photos released by Sgt. Murphy

Rolling Stone magazine, a publication not known for its political correctness, drew fire from nearly every corner this week when the latest edition featured a tousled, dreamy-eyed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover. The photo was reminiscent of famous covers featuring Jim Morrison or Bob Dylan: all three carried the glazy visage of curly-haired men. The ire-inducing difference of course being that Tsarnaev is a domestic terrorist responsible for the deaths of four people and the life-altering injuries of dozens of others. At time of writing, a Boycott the Rolling Stone Facebook page had over 170,000 “likes” and the outrage reached a fever pitch on social media over the last week.

The Media and the Manhunt

The Media and the Manhunt:

The Banality of Evil (and Good) 

Christine Deluna and Zach Crawford

On Wednesday April 17, CNN’s Peter King reported live on TV a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody. This would have been a huge victory for CNN and Boston…if it were true. King falsely reported this “breaking” story and started a media firestorm, which ended in every reporter in a 100-mile radius descending on a Boston courthouse only to find there was no suspect, and oh, now there’s a bomb threat at the courthouse.  Shamefully, CNN’s next BREAKING NEWS bulletin would feature its own journalist’s negligence.

CNN’s misreporting Wednesday became the catalyst to the media equivalent to a chicken running around without a head, wings, and legs. From the millisecond-by-millisecond coverage of the manhunt to the post arrest schmorgesborg of misleading and speculative coverage, the media’s response to the Boston Marathon bombings has revealed the flaws of many news outlets while highlighting the strengths in others. Unfortunately, these strengths were, and continue to be, outshined by hypotheticals and flashy attempts to contextualize and sensationalize a news story, even if some (or entire) details are completely irrelevant.

Oh, we know what you're thinking: but the terrorists are white.

When Terrorism Hits Home: Three Reactions to the Boston Bombing Crisis

 The indomitable city

Vicky Kelberer:

I wrote the following on Thursday evening, before the terrorists were killed and captured:

Boston, for me, is an adopted home. When I moved here five years ago, my mother would be the first to tell you that I spent the first week crying and wanting to go “home” to Minnesota. Five years later, Boston is home. It’s where I grew up, and I mean really grew up, into some semblance of an adult. It’s where I met best friends, found my passion in life, found mentors who help me to achieve it, and most importantly, it’s now where I come “home” to when I travel around the world and across the country. The only year since moving here that I missed Marathon Monday, the ultimate Bostonian holiday (even bigger than St. Patrick’s Day, not kidding), I had a dinner of mourning with a friend from Boston since we both were in Switzerland far away from the festivities we love so well.