The Rolling Stone magazine cover with a photo of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been condemned, reviled and censored with CVS and Walgreen removing the magazine from its stores. A number of villains have appeared on U.S. magazine covers in the past including Hitler, O.J. Simpson and Charles Manson, points out Gene Policinski of the First Amendment Center, July 22, 2013. Policinski says the proper response for those offended is to simply not buy the magazine.
Mark Joseph Stern writing in Slate, July 17, 2013, observed that few complained when the Columbine shooters appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Stern argues that the Rolling Stone article was a responsible piece of journalism posing the unnerving reality that Tsarvaev did not appear to be terrifying but, as the cover depicts, sweet and pleasant-looking and the difficult question of what made him turn from a popular student into a brutal terrorist.