Autism is a neurological disorder, akin to pervasive developmental disorder and schizophrenia. If you prefer to use a different label than “mental illness”, for reasons of political correctness or otherwise, that’s your prerogative.
However, no matter which epithet you grant it, the underlying concept is still the same - you are equating levying journalistic criticism with suffering from a “mental disorder”, or “psychiatric disorder”, or whichever other term you care to employ.
