People Magazine Obit Calls Scott Adams ‘Disgraced Dilbert Creator,’ Spurring Backlash

People Magazine and several other outlets are getting dragged for the headlines they used to report the death of cartoonist Scott Adams on Tuesday.

Adams, best known for creating the satirical comic strip “Dilbert,” died at the age of 68 following a terminal cancer diagnosis. Most mainstream outlets stuck to the facts or buried their criticisms of Adams deep in the article copy. The Left despised him for being a conservative and a huge fan of Donald Trump.

But some outlets put their bias front and center. People ran an article by staff writer Victoria Eden, which had the headline: “Scott Adams, Disgraced Dilbert Creator, Dies at 68,” and followed up with the subheading, “’Dilbert’ was pulled from wide circulation after Adams’ racist rant in 2023.”

Social media followers expressed their frustration over the phrasing.

“You cannot hate the media enough,” one X reply said in response to the article being tweeted from the official People X account. That tweet was later deleted, but the article with the same headline still remains on the website as of Tuesday afternoon.

The outlet also removed Edel’s name from the online article and replaced it with “People Staff” after commenters began calling her out by name on the social media platform.

It wasn’t just People disparaging Adams as they reported on his death. While The New York Times selected a neutral headline on their website, the accompanying social post was more opinionated.

“Breaking News: Scott Adams, whose comic strip ‘Dilbert’ was a sensation until he made racist comments on his podcast, has died at 68,” the legacy outlet shared in an X post.

“Stuff like this used to make me angry, but I honestly laughed as your hack behavior is too predictable. You will be hated until your dying days, you have no loved ones, when you die, people will rejoice,” one response to the NYT post said.

“You have no shame. Unreal,” echoed another.

BBC News went with the headline: “Controversial Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams dies aged 68.” NPR also referred to Adams as a “controversial cartoonist” in their article.

“Scott Adams, ‘Dilbert’ Creator Who Courted Controversy, Dead at 68,” the headline from far-Left outlet Rolling Stone said.

Some X users contrasted this phrasing to how mainstream outlets covered other notorious figures like convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. For Epstein’s death, The New York Times ran the headline, “Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Jail, Spurring Inquiries.”

The controversy these outlets reference goes back to the “Dilbert” cartoon being dropped from major newspapers following an incident in 2023. During a podcast episode, Adams discussed a Rasmussen poll, which found that nearly half of black Americans were unable to agree with the phrase, “It’s okay to be white.” Adams’ reply suggesting that the poll results indicate that black Americans are a “hate group” went viral.

“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the f*** away,” Adams said at the time after commenting further on race relations and crime.

“Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”