So is it sort of like shooting your self the foot long term?
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Masking or not masking? I would say that masking all the time would qualify as shooting yourself in the foot long term. It's a lot of wasted energy that could be spent doing something else. When you get sufficient time to turn off and relax, it really does feel like autism is a superpower.
I looked up "yellow journalism". It seems to describe sensational articles, which this is, but that's very broad. I was wondering more about the exact placement of those two words to achieve that sensational effect.
What makes it biased isn't the truthfulness of the literal words, but what it communicates to the reader. There are ways to say that the perpetrator was wearing lipstick such that the reader understand either "transsexuals and crossdressers are violent people" or "this person happens to dress funny and their behaviour has no bearing on anyone else who does the same." Based on the reactions in the article's comment section, this is clearly an instance of the former.
So to summarize, it's not a problem that looks are being highlighted. The problem is that it's done in a way that puts a target on innocent people.