Autism and Sandy Hook

I landed in front to of the TV just as Access Hollywood promised to reveal the mysterious disease that gripped Adam Lanza and by implication cause him to shoot 27 people.

I thought to myself...this is outrageous. How is Access Hollywood qualified to report on Aspergers and Autism? Their lurid headline is spreading misconceptions about people with autism. Then I realized a lot people believe this stuff.

The careless reporting is an extension what others from more reputable news organizations have reported. Curtis Brainard has a thoughtful piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the damage being done by careless reporting and, how some reporters are trying to counter the misperceptions being spread by some news organizations.

Lanza, autism, and violence

Critics try to stem media conjecture after Newtown shooting

The link between autism and becoming a mass murderer is far-fetched. As Brainard points out:

New York’s Poughkeepsie Journal, whose offices are an hour’s drive from Newtown, contacted experts at the Anderson Center for Autism in neighboring Staatsburg, who threw cold water on hype surrounding the shooting.
“That’s such a far-fetched connection,” Sudi Kash, Anderson’s director of clinical studies,told reporter Nina Schutzman. “With Asperger’s, there might be social interaction or communication difficulties, to varying degrees of severity. But this?”

If you remember Columbine, the press speculated about all sorts of things about the shooters. They were loners. They were bullied. They hated jocks. All false. I found this in Daily Beast.

"Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—who, of course, took their own lives before anyone could interrogate them—were not outcasts, loners or Goths. They were not targeting jocks or blacks, or seeking revenge for a long-running feud with the “Trenchcoat Mafia.” They did not plan their attack for Hitler’s birthday (a last-minute ammunition problem delayed them for a day)."

Investigators say it will be months before we know the reasons behind the shootings, if at all. Like Columbine, we may never really know. All this speculation driven by the 24 hour news cycle will not change that and, the speculation will do more harm than good.