New York Magazine Comes Under Fire For Inclusion Of Troy Davis On "Fifteen Minutes Of Fame" Award

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We couldn’t do anything but shake our head at this one.

Earlier today, New York Magazine posted it’s “2011 Fifteen Minutes Awards,” which was a list of all the people who became briefly gained some kind of popular culture relevancy in 2011. This was their description of the list:

“Oh, for the days of Alvin Greene and Steven Slater. Remember them? Exactly. In Daily Intel’s third annual Fifteen Minutes Awards, we pay one last tribute to the year’s newsworthy people whose names we couldn’t remember and had to Google — those who made headlines briefly, either for their own foibles or for the problems others forced upon them, but whose time has since expired (figuratively, in most cases). Like last year, there are sex scandals, viral Internet videos, and more, but the stars are all different, except in the sense that they’re no longer stars, and likely never will be again.”

And on that list, as you can see above, they included Troy Davis. Which, of course, didn’t sit well with A LOT OF PEOPLE (the BOSSIP staff included). And, as with all such controversial things, New York Magazine has since backed all the way down, going so far as to take down the entire post instead of replacing Troy Davis with someone who did actually belong on that list.

They explained their decision with this:

Earlier today, we put up a slideshow of fifteen people who’d become briefly famous in 2011, including executed death-row inmate Troy Davis. His inclusion among a list of people who were mostly tabloid staples sparked some understandable outrage. We’ve decided to remove the post.

But, as one reader commented on the NY Mag apology stated: clearly, the majority of people who championed, tweeted, and expressed outrage about Troy Davis and the injustice done to him, have probably not given that man a single thought since the last week of September, when he was executed. Some of you may have not ever even heard or read his name before September of this year and have not read or heard his name since.

So, was New York Mag really wrong for including Troy Davis? Or just for doing it in such an irreverent way?