Outside Looking ‘Inside Autism’
As further evidence of just how well developed the large media’s morbid fascination is with us Autistics, the first installment of CNN’s week-long series Inside autism is up.
Bad sign #1: a prominant and direct link to the “Autism Speaks” video
Bad sign #2: abundant use of quotes that include “[receiving the diagnosis was] probably the most devastating thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life,” “I didn’t choose this. I was drafted. I have an autistic child” and “parents of children with autism are experts too because they live with the disorder 24 hours a day.” More hand-wringing to come, I’m sure.
No mention of “how to stem the epidemic” yet. I’m sure it is coming…
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August 1st, 2006 at 10:39 am
How do we change the messages… how do we make people see that autism isn’t the end of the world?
And I don’t mean only showing the good stuff, either. I just mean… showing real life.
August 1st, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Really Bad sign #1: The Autism Speaks video is listed as a Resource. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve seen on autism that is less worthy of being called a resource. Regardless of what you think of Autism Speaks and the video, it was not produced to help people. It was produced to raise money.
@Jannalou, you said: How do we change the messages… how do we make people see that autism isn’t the end of the world?.
I think we all keep doing what we’re doing. I really think we are changing the perception of autism by our words and actions both on-line and off-line. The kind of change we are looking for takes time, but I think it’s slowly happening.
August 1st, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I should have added that I think the main stream media will be the last place I expect to see signs of this change.
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:28 am
Full points though to the family interviewed in the Monday segment — their story bears little resemblance to the net piece. Father talked of what a blessing his autistic daughter is, how much she’s taught him….. Because they have, out of 4 kids, an autistic daughter and an Aspie son, they know how different autistic kids are from each other and how no one approach will work with all autistics.
I was very disapointed at how different the accompanying online article was
August 6th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
How can they call this “Inside” of anything when the only views being expressed are those *outside* the central theme? Sure, parents have a lot of say, and do have to go through a LOT to make sure their kids are fairly treated, etc, but they are not and can never be the end-all resource for what autism IS. The same goes for any one of us– we don’t have the entire picture. We have our little bit, some of us are aware of more of their own individual picture than others, and we have to work harder than most people to figure that out– but once we HAVE it…
We aren’t an epidemic, Aspie Dad, but all the media is giving people to go off of are depictions like the “autism speaks” video. Until there is other mainstream media-endorsed “stuff”, that is all people will see, because they rarely care to actively seek the truth outside what they are fed as truth.