Recently, the Age of Autism blog put out a piece of “satire” where they showed a badly photoshopped image of the people they like to demonize sitting down to a thanksgiving dinner, with a baby as the main course.
It was disgusting. I said so then.
Orac at Respectful Insolence blogged it, as did Kim at Countering Age of Autism and Turner and Kowalski.
Follow the link, and you get nothing now.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/11/pass-the-maalox-an-aoa-thanksgiving-nightmare.html.
Thank you for pulling the piece. An apology, to the autism community and to the individuals you maligned would be in order. A public one. AoA, take the link above, and replace the post with an apology.
I am not holding my breath.
I took screenshots of the post & the comments.
Pulling the post & even issuing an apology doesn’t make it all better.
My first thought when reading “pulls offensive blog post” was “which one?” They’d have to close the whole site for that statement to really be true!
Katie,
good point.
I’m glad they pulled it. It shows that they understand just how wrong it was. Will they be more careful in the future? Maybe, but I doubt it. Their minds are still twisted in knots.
I don’t think it shows that they knew it was wrong. I think it just shows that they didn’t like the bad publicity. If they knew it was wrong, they would have never allowed it to begin with.
As far as what they should pull, I suggest every piece referring to the claim that offit was paid $29M for Rotateq, every piece defending Andrew Wakefield, and every piece written by He Who Sues People Who Report Him For Threatening to Sue People.
“If they knew it was wrong, they would have never allowed it to begin with”
Also, they would have apologised for it.
I think the post, and Kim Stagliano’s subsequently-deleted “RotaDick” comment, show that AoA is having a bit of an identity crisis.
Are they the “Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic,” complete with editors and advertisers, trying to impart factual info? Or are they a blog, representing the opinions of the writers?
If it’s a newspaper, the latest shenanigans show piss-poor editorial decision-making. They were right to pull the piece, and they really, really should issue an apology. Not necessarily to the subjects of the photo (although that would be nice,) but to their readers. The comments showed that the piece caused even some of their supporters to question their judgment. A wise editor would issue an apology, or, if they stand by it, a rationale for running it, and an explanation of their editorial policy on cartoons, etc.