Read, and recollect

Go to the comments part of this post. Scroll down to the last comment posted. There, you'll find a couple of letters. The first in order is a response from the person who perpetrated that travesty of an article (allegedly) about autism that describes autistic children as feces-exploding, seizing, toxic nightmares unable to rid themselves of poison or disease.

A reader of my blog and local mom of six kids, five who are autistic, contacted the author of this article. She has now posted the author's response and her own reply to that response. Read them for yourself. Read that original article, a clear shill for Thoughtful House. Remember that these are our children being described in this way, talked about in this way. Recollect that it's already an uphill battle to help people better understand what autistic really means. Most of all, fight this egregious misrepresentation of this neurological difference with whatever means you have in your arsenal: Loving your child, helping your child, treating your child like any other human being deserves to be treated, and insisting that others--teachers, parents, friends, and alleged writers--do the same. People who insist on misrepresenting autism are bullies, especially those who have a pulpit from which to preach and who misuse that pulpit.

I've described this blog as being about many things, and one of those includes writing. The writer of that article refers in her response letter to "reporting," as though what was produced here was in some way journalistic and adhered to the ethics of reporting. Yet her own letter clearly reflects again the inherent bias of that piece. That piece is so full of misinformation and so lacking in balance that it could and should be used in an introductory journalism class for how not to write feature articles. It shows many other things, as well, but I'll leave that for you to discover.

There's a reason people who earn journalism degrees have to take ethics classes. The power of the printed word is one of the greatest powers anyone can wield. The onus of maintaining clear ethics, of ensuring balance, of providing accurate, factual information, is one of the weightiest burdens a writer for a popular audience bears. It is not something to be handled lightly. Or falsely.