That is one theory, and I don't entirely disagree - in general, I'd expect more people to have sympathy for the victims vs the alleged perpetrator and their team.
I wanted to speak about TMS and their leanings in particular. MS is led by an attorney and a journalist, and they were both VERY critical of the way JG ran the court, they were VERY critical of the probably cause affidavit, and a few of NML moves in the past. I have been listening to them since the early KAK discovery and I remembered being annoyed at how softly worded all their reporting was towards the accused. If anything they 'anti Defence' (or rather 'mad at the D & the internet sleuths batting for the D') has been a recent development, and seeing how the Pro Defence SM talks about them, tearing their appearance to pieces etc, I can't blame them.
PS: There has been a pro-Defence shift in recent years. 100%, compared to the early 90s and the 'curb all crime, punish everyone,' ppl tend to have more sympathy for convicted criminals. We all witnessed it with the Adnan Syed case (which IMO is a very strong open and shut case), and the few cases popularised by podcasts/netflix, see: Making a Murderer. However, in the past year or two, I see a massive popular switch to pro-conspiracy thinking online/anti P, that's altogether different than the 'maybe this person is innocent' and more 'the LE is bad/wrong as a principle'. See Karen Reid case, Scott Peterson's new fandom etc.
All MOO