Autism and the Media

Just a brilliant piece by Neil S. Greenspan, immunologist and clinical pathologist in Cleveland, on Huffington Post. Realize that journalists are looking for stories that will get hits on the Web, sell papers and attract viewers, but sometimes these stories may not reflect the real struggles and challenges.

In the United States, April was National Autism Awareness month. Whether or not media coverage of autism increased over the past few weeks, there was already a great deal of coverage. Unfortunately, much of that coverage has been focused more on raising awareness than advancing understanding. A recent interview on National Public Radio (NPR) illustrates some of the recurring weaknesses of many of these articles, radio segments, and television features.
There is a tendency for groups that serve or advocate on behalf of those with disabilities to focus on individual success stories, even if rare, to fend off the prejudice and even hostility that sometimes arise in the general public and are directed towards those with various diagnostic labels. I saw this first hand with elements of the learning disabilities (LD) community that, at least in some instances, were reluctant to acknowledge that some kids with LD are below average in standard measures of intelligence. The most vulnerable members of this population actually had even fewer options than the individuals who could be presented to the broader public as pretty much "regular" kids, with their "learning differences" minimized.
A human interest story about an individual's struggles with a disability that is tied up in a pretty metaphorical bow at the end of the piece will undoubtedly attract more reader/listener/viewer attention than a more demanding discursive, analytical discussion, especially if the conclusions are not upbeat. Perhaps, it would be counterproductive to completely eliminate the uplifting narratives focused on one individual at a time, but if understanding, not just awareness, of autism is to be advanced, a bit more of the sort of journalism focused on conveying information and not just eliciting emotion will be needed.