Unseen Bias? Revisiting Media’s Surprising Role in the D.C. Sniper Saga

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night wondering, “Hey, are we maybe a little too mean to serial killers?” Yeah, me neither… but apparently, the world has reached that surreal crossroads. Picture this: social media detectives sifting through the ashes of early-2000s media coverage and deciding the only real tragedy wasn’t the crime spree, but how the D.C. sniper, John Allen Muhammad, got roasted by the tabloids. I mean, seriously—what kind of alternate universe are we in when people are wringing their hands over whether we bruised a mass murderer’s ego? It’s almost poetic, if poetry was written in crayon on the back of a crime scene report. This article dives headfirst into the darkly hilarious mess of revisionism, empathy overload, and our eternal hunger for shifting the outrage spotlight—just when you think the internet’s out of hot takes, someone always finds the thermostat . If you’re ready for a ride through the land where sympathy gets doled out like Halloween candy—sometimes to the scariest trick-or-treater on the block—then strap in. <a href="https://theonion.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Early2000sNIBPHG.jpg”>LEARN MORE.

WASHINGTON—Questioning the press’s past coverage of the man known as the D.C. sniper, social media users have reportedly begun criticizing the early 2000s media for its harsh treatment of John Allen Muhammad. “You should have seen the tabloids back then—they were so mean to him,” 37-year-old podcast host Leigh Scholler wrote Monday, lambasting outlets from news broadcasts to blogs for their “cruel and unnecessary” depiction of the serial killer. “He was all over the papers, all the time. He couldn’t shoot anybody without making a headline. Can you imagine how that must have made him feel? These vultures were rooting for and celebrating his downfall. We all were. Honestly, it makes me sick.” Scholler went on to express hope that at least the nation was learning to treat mass shooters with more empathy.