I was in the school paper and it was not fun!

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Last year, someone from the school paper interviewed me because they were doing a special on what went on in students' heads. They interviewed two ADHD kids and the only aspie willing to do this was me. I spent an hour with this guy talking about how you shouldn't just label me and then treat me as the label suggests, I also discussed politics and other important things (I thought I could get my ideas across.) I think the ADHD kids came out looking better than me. They interviewed my counselor who likened my AS to being in a foreign country and not understanding the language, people probably thought I was dumb or something! Can't say I've been Mr. Popular since that stupid article was published. They misquoted me several times too to make it seem like I had a speech impediment.
Has anyone else been interviewed like this? If so, did you look bad in the article?

Just curious, is the text of the article available? Would you mind sharing it?

But seriously, just write a nasty response and ask them to print it. Explain to them that you don't appreciate being slandered.

Is there a link to this? I know that news agencies in general take the most hermit guy and slap the AS on him. NTs often fear complexity, so they try to elaborate on inferior concepts, language barriers, etc. I think it makes them an inferior source though and people can notice this if you find other elaborations (eg lies, bias) on other topics.

The worst-case scenario is if your HS/college w is heavily influenced/interned with erroneous pundits like Nancy Grace and Bill O'Riley. I do feel that "autism" and even now "asperger's" has been over-victimized in the mass media.

Unfortunately, the paper took the link down (it is more than a year old), I'll have to scan it, but I don't think it'll come out legible.
Stupid scanner

People actually READ your school paper ? I find that hard to believe. Of course, that is exactly the reason why I don't tell anyone about my AS.

Wait, let me just take a few quotes from my copy:

''Imagine yourself living in a foreign country where you do not understand most of what they're saying and trying to interject something.'' -My counselor
''While some ''people watch'' at an airport when bored. windscar does it to learn.'' (I really didn't like this one.)
Here's where he misquoted me:
''I would just be alone by myself, and I would just play with my toy.'' I said with friends, and with toys
another quote from my counselor:
''It's very hard for them to get the gist of the conversation.''

I can sympathise with your situation. I did an interview with the local paper last December to raise awareness and was misquoted multiple times. There were also some things added that I did not say at all.

I can somewhat understand their point of view in that they need to attract reader attention by using sensationalistic techniques. It could have been both interesting and accurate though.

It's a school newspaper. They're not sensationalizing. They're just too lazy to write down quotations correctly and check their references. They probably just made those quotations up from their vague memory, and it doesn't matter because they're a newspaper. What are you going to do, check their sources (which probably don't exist beyond some interviews)? Oh wait, they don't have to reveal those. You could ask the interviewees, but that's too much trouble for most people to care.

However, you can go after the school paper for that but it wouldn't matter. As for this NT complexity is not a bad thing unless it involves romantic relationships.

I understand. I got into the school newsletter recently because I came second in this inter-school computer programming competition. I wasn't misquoted, he just took everything I said out of context and changed the meaning of what I said that way, and omitted all the important sentances.

I hate when people do such things

I hope you made a formal complaint at the school. To show any kind of discrimination or open anyone up to anything less than respect is quite illegal. I would have demanded an apology be printed and threatened them with a lawyer.

Most easy action is to ask if you can (proof) read the article before printing. In that way you could do some suggestions.

But I think TS has been brave here, for being interviewed in the school paper. I am curious about the article. But sometimes people just get a different meaning from texts, even when it is written in a balanced way.

good enough reason to validate why nobody knows i have it


i know at my school, nobody reads the paper and everything is overlooked
it probably flew past every few people that read it

they use your name? i dunno if i'd let em do that.... people always have angles when they write stories.

That happened to me quite recently. I am the valedictorian of my senior class (I have to make a 5 minute speech in front of 2,500+ people ) and the school newspaper wanted to interview me about it. So they interview me for like 30 minutes, and I am thinking it is going to come out well, but then after this long interview they only use two of my quotes. Now, that was kind of annoying, but no big deal. One of the quotes was just me saying how my parents were great and so on, but the other quote claimed that I said that I had intentionally stayed single throughout high school so it couldn't distract me from my school work, and that it was my "secret" to academic success!! ! And the thing is, I never said anything like that whatsoever! I guess I could have been mumbling, (since I do that a lot) and my words could have been misconstrued, but still, if you think you may hear someone say something like that, make sure you clarify and verify if you are a supposed "journalist"! Plus, it was oddly specific...

I complained and the person who did the interview said he didn't remember me saying that, but that it was on his notes for the interview. Luckily for me though, no one actually reads the school paper Though it was still embarrassing...