This image was lost some time after publication.

Amid all the more serious criticism of BusinessWeek's story about Kevin Rose, everyone forgot to ask: Why did the magazine run such a dorky photo of the Digg founder? Well, he told me.

Kevin Rose: btw, the cover shot was taken as a joke - I had no idea they were going to use that pic..
Valleywag: yeah, can you tell me about that on-record?
Kevin: honestly I was just messing around when they took that pic. had no idea they would actually use it for the cover
it was me just joking around
BusinessWeek didn't show us the cover or title of the story until they put it on their website
Wag: why the headphones?
Kevin: good question
Wag: ha, why did you even have them on?
Kevin: they wanted a pic for the inside of us doing something... I had a pic of me drinking a beer, but I guess that didn't make the cut
Wag: are those their headphones?
Kevin: no, mine
$20 @ best buy - sony ones - seriously pretty good

There we go. Kevin Rose didn't think his thumbs would end up on BusinessWeek, and he uses cheap headphones.

Earlier: Ripping on the Valley Boys story, part 1: the cover [Valleywag]
And: Digg fallout [Valleywag]