Re: Autism Society of America's Response to Savage (from another list)

[Guest guest]

It kind of bothers me that groups say “I don’t what to give Savage promotion for this, but please talk about us or play our PSA’s.” It’s so self-serving.

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Autism Society of America's Response to Savage

Dear Chapter Leaders,

First off, many thanks to you all for the professional, productive and

inspiring responses you have carried out in your local

communities in the wake of the outrageous comments by Savage and the

ensuing media frenzy. As always, our ASA community responds

in the best way for families and people on the spectrum and we are so proud

to show our media contacts -- and corporated partners and

Capitol Hill colleagues -- this every day.

As you can imagine, it's been pretty busy back here in Bethesda last week,

but Carin and I wanted to just touch base on some of our

activities. As many of you know, Mr. Savage made his remarks in late June,

with encore airings on July 2 (encore airings of taped shows

are standard in radio, so this was not done because of the autism remarks

specifically). Despite the horrendous nature of these

remarks, hardly any press attention was paid to Mr. Savage until July 16,

when Media Matters, an organization that tracks talk radio hosts,

launched a major press effort on Mr. Savage's remarks on autism.

Thus, last Friday, we were contacted by CNN, CBS, ABC and several papers,

and what was interesting was that everyone of them knew that

these remarks were completely wrong (which I don't know would have been the

case 3 years ago!) and everyone of them wanted to avoid

giving Mr. Savage media attention for these egregious remarks if possible.

At that point, we all realized the media engines had

started and thus we worked with our national Board of Directors to come up

with our first statement last Friday, which was submitted to

the press, the Talk Radio Network management, members of Congress and

several corporate sponsors that we could confirm supported the show.

Sadly, Mr. Savage used the media attention to make equally egregious remarks

on Monday. Parent protests and letter writing campaigns

really got started Monday, and fortunately the media gave them airtime as

well. On Monday, we were contacted by AFLAC to let us know

they were pulling their sponsorship, and we responded with letters of thanks

from our Board. In addition, we spoke with several

disabilities groups, federal agencies and Congressional staffs on their

efforts, and endeavored to encourage a coordinated response.

The outpouring of support is really amazing; as a parent, I have been really

moved.

As ASA (representing a national organization), we wanted to take the

heightened media opportunity to educate and disseminate the right

info on autism, instead of focusing on Mr. Savage himself via a call for a

boycott (although we fully support each individual's right to

call for that). Thus, yesterday, we published a second statement that

corrects Mr. Savage's information, but also calls for the stations

covering him to donate airtime (a precious commodity in radio) to

appropriate information on autism, and we have sent our ASA radio PSA

(which is available as a file on CLN for you to send as well).

Events are still unfolding, and we greatly, greatly appreciate all the work

you are doing... because local stations hearing from their

listeners is what really makes change happen. If you have any questions, as

always, don't hesitate to contact Carin or me.

Kind regards,

Margi

Marguerite Kirst Colston

Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Initiatives

ASA

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