Thoughts on the Controversial Rolling Stone Cover
Rolling Stone magazine isn’t what it used to be.
But it tries to remain relevant. And it occasionally still is. Like this month.
Forty years ago, Rolling Stone was the voice of a generation. Now, it’s yet another print journal living on what seems to be borrowed time, a musty antique with a dwindling readership in an age gone completely digital. It doesn’t help matters that the “brand” is stamped with an outdated masthead with a clear inference to classic rock.
No doubt, Rolling Stone makes a noble effort to stay germane in these changing musical and cultural times — and has actually made exemplary efforts to appeal to a much wider demographic than what was initially envisioned by its creators nearly 50 years ago when John Lennon made the very first cover.
The best illustration of this is Rolling Stone’s political and social commentary, which is consistently first-rate. Ever since Hunter S. Thompson’s opiate-laced musings graced its pages decades ago, the monthly magazine has provided its readers with a steady pipeline of alternative perspectives of current events. Two of the very best writers doing this (anywhere) today are Matt Taibbi and Michael Hastings, whose full-length features appear regularly in Rolling Stone. Whenever something new appears by either of these two writers, that becomes mandatory reading.
True to its original mission as an edgy alternative to the mainstream, the magazine’s most recent issue features a cover story on the infamous Boston Marathon bomber/murderer. Excuse the cringe-worthy bon mot here, but the article has ignited a national firestorm. Apparently, many good citizens of the republic were so offended by the article — particularly throughout the New England region — that major retailers all across the United States are currently refusing to carry this month’s issue of Rolling Stone.
According to reports and corporate pronouncements, chain stores including CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, 7-11, and K-Mart will not be selling this month’s issue.
Which begs the real question: Who in the fuck buys Rolling Stone at K-Mart?
But I digress.
Sorry, American retailers. You’ve already abandoned the moral high ground that once could have taken, and you abdicated those standards a very long time ago. Just take a look inside any of your stores. Once the consumer is able to finally locate the magazine rack — between rows and rows of cheap Chinese-made products stocking the shelves — the eyes are bludgeoned with a ceaseless parade of intellectual pornography in the form of periodicals like People, the National Inquirer, The Star, Us, Globe, and countless other publications which provide us with a pipeline of gossip on subjects that couldn’t possibly be more nauseatingly irrelevant.
How about this? If retailers really want to take the moral high road, then refuse to sell any publication with a Kardashian, a Lohan, or any of the other mind-numbing perversions of mass exploitation on the cover. Now, that’s offensive.
But you won’t. Because at the heart of it all, you are all pimps. You’re just the middlemen, the deliverers of all things we need and (quite often), don’t need. Your role is not as the gatekeeper. On the contrary, you’re just the gate — to all consumer products regardless of whether they were made in third-world sweatshops by child labor or by a food industry intent to keep up addicted to sugar and fat. Delivering products to our doorsteps is what you do very well, and it becomes incumbent upon the customer to decide what he or she wants. Not you.
But now retailers are interfering with the distribution of real news. The pushers of toilet paper and tampons are now blockading what America chooses to buy and read. If the people of New England are outraged by an article in Rolling Stone, then they can (and should) simply refuse to buy it. It’s not Walgreens’, CVS’s, or K-Mart’s job to decide for us what we want to read this month or decide what’s offensive and inappropriate. We can do that for ourselves — thank you very much.
A few years ago, a cartoon appeared in a Danish newspaper that some claim was offensive to Islam. The cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, received several death threats. Accordingly, media all over the Western world (e.g., the so-called free world) capitulated to the pressure of fanatics and refused to re-print these cartoons, fearing backlash in the form of violence. However, a brave few English-language publications didn’t buckle to the threats. They did the job real journalists so. Which is to research, write, and put it all out there for us to digest and consume.
Those brave few publications which did end up printing the controversial cartoons found they were not welcome by most American retailers. Even Borders bookstore (which has since gone out of business) refused to stock any magazine which included the controversial drawings of Kurt Westergaard. What bitter irony when free-market forces refuse to do either — which is act freely or market.
This month’s Rolling Stone cover story may indeed be inappropriate and offensive to some. And if you don’t like it, then here’s some advice: Don’t buy it. But I sure as hell don’t want K-Mart assuming the role of my protector and making that decision for me. Now, that’s something fundamentally outrageous and offensive.
I dunno Nolan…you say here “This month’s Rolling Stone cover story may indeed be inappropriate and offensive to some. And if you don’t like it, then here’s some advice: Don’t buy it. But I sure as hell don’t want K-Mart assuming the role of my protector and making that decision for me. Now, that’s something fundamentally outrageous and offensive.” Yet you are organizing a boycott of the Venetian Poker Room. Can you explain why its ok for you to promote a boycott of a business but its not ok for a business to self boycott another business? Maybe I am wrong, but this seems off to me. As best I can tell no one in Boston or at K-mart is asking anyone to forbid RS to publish…they just dont want to help promote what they find to be offensive.
Respectfully, Randy
Randy, I’m not Nolan but that’s an easy one to answer.
Boycotting the Venetian poker room is exactly the same thing as “Don’t buy it.” Nolan isn’t deciding whether you should or shouldn’t play at the Venetian– he’s using his considerable powers of persuasion to encourage you to not buy it as well.
I don’t see it that way. He is organizing a boycott against a business but seems to think a boycott between 2 other businesses is somehow outrageous and offensive. I think K-mart is doing the exact same thing Nolan is and support both of them to take these actions. I happen to disagree with both of these actions, but that’s just me.
While I agree that companies should operate with a general sense of social responsibility, their purpose isn’t to make or not make decisions about what should be available to the public. Their purpose is actually to make sure we can get our toilet paper and tampons, as you point out, and to do so at the lowest cost to us while allowing them to make enough money to make it worthwhile for them to do so, right? If, in their expert judgement, not putting a copy of Rolling Stone on their difficult-to-find magazine rack will help them do this, why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they bow to public pressure to provide only the goods and services their customers want if it will help them achieve their raison d’etre?
Moreover, you criticize them for not putting Rolling Stone on their stands, but then you encourage them to eliminate Us and the National Inquirer [sic] and People and the like. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’d like to think you believe that we should have a free and open press, where people could print what they like and other people could buy what they like. If you really believe this, that means putting up with a lot of crap. You’ve seen the alternative, it’s the Romanian book stores you described in a very fine earlier essay.
Stores ought to be responsive to what their customers want. I don’t think K-Mart is taking the “moral high ground” on this. I haven’t seen a press release that has said the equivalent of, “Unlike our $10 sandals, this issue of Rolling Stone is true crap, and we won’t soil our shelves by placing it anywhere near our store-brand batteries that might not start leaking before you get them home.” They’ve said, basically, “Based on what we know about our customers, we think they’ll be mad at us if they see this on our shelves, and we don’t want to deal with that, because we have a hard enough time selling toilet paper and tampons, not to mention crappy sandals and batteries, to people who haven’t yet mastered breathing through their noses.” The subtext being that they’re not in the business of deciding what people will like, but in responding to it as best they can.
Your beef, really, is with the folks who are outraged when the see Tsarnaev’s face on the cover of a magazine, and that’s fair. And, while I also deeply respect Taibbi’s writing, let’s not kid ourselves. Rolling Stone put out that cover exactly because they thought it would get them noticed, and they were right. Maybe this isn’t what they expected, but,
hey, the wider media is now talking for the first time in a long time about a magazine that some say is “trying to be relevant”, “used to be the voice of a generation”, and is “a musty antique with a dwindling readership in an age gone completely digital”. That can’t be all bad. Besides, who in the fuck buys Rolling Stone at K-Mart anyway?
Right or wrong placement on a magazine’s cover is considered by most as something of an honor. The editors of RS surely know this. Choosing the bomber as the cover subject was the equivalent of turning a tin ear. How much more appropriate as well as sensitive if they had pictured victims of the bomber’s insanity.
I’m confused. Why is putting his picture on the magazine cover such a big deal. If that’s your lead story, the reason you think people would be interested in buying your magazine then aren’t you supposed to advertise that fact?
And there’s no comparison between Nolan’s Venetian boycott and pulling the magazine off the shelves. Nolan can promote or condemn anything he wants but it’s still my choice whether or not to punish Adelson. Retailers who refuse to sell R.S. have taken the choice out of my hands. And if they’re so worried that this guy’s face will cause outrage among their customers let them put up a note on the magazine stand saying “R.S. available at the customer service counter”.
they have not taken the choice out of your hands. they are telling you to buy somewhere else. you dont have to shop at k-mart any more than Nolan has to play poker at the Venetian. Kmart is saying they will not support Rolling Stone by making it easy to buy when as Nick says you get your cheap tampons and diapers. Nolan is saying he will not support Adelson by playing in the best run poker room in Vegas. Nolan is not only making this personal decision, he is promoting this action and asking others to do the same thing. Kmart just says dont but it in our store.
Speaking of tampons I understand that the Texas Dept of Public Safety has some to sell. Thus who needs Kmart.
It’s a big deal because our media turns terrorists into heroes, which breeds more terrorism. I have a lot of sympathy for the people who feel we shouldn’t do that.
That said, I agree with Nolan that given the situation, it’s a shame that stores feel the need to intervene between the magazine and the consumer.