“Wanna see my picture on the cover/Wanna buy five copies for my mother/Wanna see my smiling face on the cover of the Rolling Stone…”

– Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, “The Cover of Rolling Stone,” 1973

After flipping through the channels Wednesday night I settled on “The Colbert Report,” not because I intended to watch the entire show as I tried to wind down from the day, but because what he said caught my attention.

Sure, funny man and faux news anchor Stephen Colbert is good for a chuckle with a side dish of honesty, but it was his stab at the Disney-manufactured pop group the Jonas Brothers that stopped my fingers from hitting the button to change the channel.

Colbert mocked the release of the band’s latest album, entitled “Lines, Vines and Trying Times,” with a crocked smile that suggested Colbert was really questioning what these three teen boys who are cashing million-dollar checks really know about the big bad world.

The brothers’ carefully crafted marketing machine has scored the teen trio the July cover of the once-revered Rolling Stone magazine for the second time. The first Jonas Brothers cover was the August 2008 issue of the monthly music magazine.

Hearing Colbert’s quip made me pause and remember the first Rolling Stone I read and how much I adored the articles that helped shaped the way I looked at pop culture as a teenager and paved the path I would travel with aspirations of being an entertainment journalist.

On Wednesday night, I concluded that gone were the days that the cover of Rolling Stone, and the conjoined feature story that is sandwiched between the advertisement-heavy pages, went to legitimate music artists and prolific performers who changed the way the world viewed entertainment and pop culture.

Since Rolling Stone began publishing in 1967, the Beatles have been on the cover more than 30 times, and rightfully so. The Beatles forever changed modern rock and roll.

Yet, a pattern has developed in recent years: Rolling Stone has offered the cover to a band that will be good for one hit song, if it’s lucky, maybe two radio hits. Then some entertainment journalist, who no doubt is talented when not under pressure to persuade the readers, proceeds to try to convince me that the band on the cover is the best thing that has happened to the modern world.

For example, the February 2007 cover went to the Vegas-grown band Panic at the Disco. It’s OK, I heard the collective “Who?” rumble through the hills of our community and that is exactly my point. After the band released its sophomore album in the spring of 2008, the world has since forgotten about Panic at the Disco’s songs.

In May 2007, Rolling Stone then inflicted readers with a cover dedicated to the perpetually stoned songstress Amy Winehouse. While Winehouse has talent and a sound reminiscent of the Motown era, Winehouse’s career potential has been derailed by her inability to put down the crack pipe.

Since watching a wasted Winehouse perform and disappoint in April 2007, I have starting listening to Duffy, someone who deserves respect from the music community and who will more than likely never grace the cover of Rolling Stone.

The June 2009 issue was no different, giving the cover to talent contest loser Adam Lambert.

“Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, ‘I’m going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,’ ” Lambert told the magazine in his interview. Cooler, why? Because he doesn’t have a legitimate record contract, he’s never released an album and he’s clinging to his 15 minutes of fame?

I was unaware that people still watched “American Idol,” and I was further unaware that people cared who actually won. As a matter of fact, who did win?

As my head spins and tries to make some sort of sense as to why a once politically progressive and culturally captivating magazine like Rolling Stone would so viciously turn against its loyal readers. My conclusion is that it’s not the magazine’s fault.

Rolling Stone is suffering from the same illness that newspapers, magazines and other publications are afflicted with. It’s called the I-don’t-want-to-read-it-when-someone-will-post-the-video-of-it-on-the-Internet-for-free-later-itis. Unfortunately, Rolling Stone thought it found a cure when really all it did was make everyone more ill. Its approach was to give the readers the “celebrities” who are important now, not the ones who will be important for generations of fans and who actually better the entertainment culture.

In February 2008, I had worked at the Daily Sparks Tribune for seven months as a paginator and occasional reporter when I asked editor Nathan Orme to take a chance and let me start a weekly arts and entertainment section.

I still remember that Nathan looked at me with a very contemplative stare that nearly made me say “Just joking!” and drop the subject, but he had faith and let me start the weekly section. I have always aspired to be an entertainment reporter and would love to work for a magazine, and once upon a time I even hoped to work for Rolling Stone. But as our culture changes, it has caused me to reevaluate my starry-eyed career goals.

Never did I want to be an entertainment journalist to write about people’s personal lives, but it seems like the dirty details that litter the pages of gossip magazines are a bigger hit with readers than the true facts that make the real celebrities so fascinating.

As of Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, the so-called entertainment media outlets are digging up dirt and searching for reasons to point the finger at someone. What happened to remembering the amazing performer that Jackson was? Why has MTV not stopped all its regularly scheduled non-music-related television shows to play Jackson’s innovative and pop culture progressing videos back to back?

I’m sorry Mr. Jackson, even the change in media coverage throughout your career foreshadowed this failure of proper respect. Shoot, Rolling Stone has even kicked on its presses to circulate a special issue dedicated to the man who spent nearly 40 of his 50 years at the top of the entertainment industry.

Well, goodbye Mr. Jackson, thanks for the memories.

Cortney Maddock is a writer for the Sparks Tribune. She can be reached at cmadock@dailysparkstribune.com.