9 ms·

AP fired reporter after dangerous blunder – Slack chats reveal chaotic process

202 points by danso 4y ago

z9znz 4y ago
A cursory glance (which ironically is probably what created this dangerous misinformation) suggests to me that news agency haste to be first to announce something was the primary factor in this miscommunication. I now wonder if pre-internet news was as prone to these kind of mistakes since it took so much longer to publish news (thereby giving sources more time to confirm things).
- ghaff 4y ago
  There's at least some truth to that. There was still a lot of time pressure over whether the presses should roll or not. But it wasn't a continuous process that strongly rewarded publishing this very second. For a filmic example of the process of holding presses and then going with the story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBXuyRXNIHE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBXuyRXNIHE&t=1s
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  Actually the fact that it took longer to publish and distribute the paper, but it still had to be in everyone’s driveway before work, produced a major time crunch for publishers. In 1948, for example, the Chicago Tribune assumed Truman would lose the election and published it as fact on the front page in order to make their print deadline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman
ncallaway 4y ago
Frankly, this seems like an editorial mistake not a journalists mistake. Unless he completely made up the information he received, or lied about the attribution in the internal slack chat, he should not have been fired for this. This was an editorial error. In fact, the exact information he passed along was factually correct by one interpretation. The S-300 rockets were "Russian" in the sense that they were Russian manufacturing. They were not "Russian" in the sense that they were fired by Russian armed forces (to the best of our knowledge). Really think the AP has tried to pin the blame on this one reporter incorrectly.
- ajross 4y ago
  That seems likely, but you still don't let the reporter off the hook. "Technically correct by one interpretation" isn't the standard for journalistic sourcing. He needed another source or more context (just an identification of these as AA missiles would have been enough to kill the story) and didn't get one. It was a messup on a few different axes, but it's started with bad journalism. Whether or not the guy was fired as a scapegoat or to cover up someone else's mistake is, heh, not something we have reportable sourcing for.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > just an identification of these as AA missiles would have been enough to kill the story I understand why "Russia fires on Poland" is news. Why is "Ukraine fires on Poland, blames Russia" not news?
    - ajross 4y ago
      > Why is "Ukraine fires on Poland, blames Russia" not news? Because that's not what happened? That's spin. In fact Ukraine jumped on this story only once the AP published it. It's popular to attribute this to Ukrainian propaganda in some circles, but (heh, again getting to the actual subject at hand) that's not something you can report unless you can find evidence. All the facts we know point to the Ukrainian government being just as fooled by the AP story as we were.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        And it’s not impossible to dream up a world where that kind of mistake would actually get Article 5 moving.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        Ukraine is still insisting that they didn't fire the missile. It's not an oversight or a misinterpretation.
      - eshch 4y ago
remarkEon 4y ago
>I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this Has this AP reporter been asleep for … their entire career? Charitably, I can interpret this as the reporter thinking they wouldn’t make up something about a potential Article 5 event, but - and maybe it’s my cynicism about this war - wouldn’t that mean you’d want to guarantee that what you’re saying is super precise? “Russian missiles hit Poland” vs “Russian missiles fired by Ukraine hit Poland” obviously mean very different things. Doesn’t look like LaPorta did anything wrong here, necessarily, and this looks like an editorial problem to me.
- 0x_rs 4y ago
  You can always retract your statements and pieces, most of the time the evidence isn't as glaring and it just goes unnoticed. I firmly believe prioritizing shock value in journalism is dangerous and without brakes it'll keep getting worse, and some will absolutely, inevitably pay for it because misinformed people acted in some unpredictable way. Especially in such a propagandized conflict. Speaking of US officials, or from any country at all, they don't really care about evidence. It's political games that news media feeds with like vultures, sometimes. >It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine. >President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions. from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-...
- mc32 4y ago
  Who say things like “American missiles fired by Ukraine?” It would only make sense to say that if US troops on the ground hosted by Ukraine fired the missiles. It’s stupid. No one says Chinese AK-47s fired by Ukrainian soldiers. Someone was playing stupid.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
mardifoufs 4y ago
Qoah so they really threw him under the bus. Crazy that the editorial staff didn't even pause when article 5 was brought up. It seems like something you might want to really be sure about, and ask more questions on who did it (not just making sure that missiles actually landed somewhere). Extremely careless
- morpheuskafka 4y ago
  Surely the actual militaries (at least Poland and the US who would presumably be the primary decision makers) would have actual knowledge of what happened/what their confidence in that was. I believe they fairly quickly clarified that the missiles were not suspected to have come from Russia. At any rate, if they were wrong too seeing the AP publish it citing their own intelligence as a source wouldn't have made them any more confident in their analysis.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    They obviously wouldn't, but it could cause escalation. If Russia thought that NATO had its causis belli, it's a dangerous situation no matter what. Again, you are right that it is not likely at all that any side would act on a mere report, but the stakes are so high that even a 1% chance of a misunderstanding is very dangerous.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  > Crazy that the editorial staff didn't even pause when article 5 was brought up. What I think would be crazy was if this news was real and some nobody journalists were sitting on this info based on those kind of considerations. I mean, these aren't the people I want making such decisions. Let them pass on the information they have as accurately as possible, and let an elected representative act on it.
aaron695 4y ago
jimmygrapes 4y ago
> But while Nixon had approved the use of that specific anonymous source in the past, people involved said, Nixon was not aware of that tip or that story. LaPorta did not exactly claim that Nixon had approved the source in this case, but his words were interpreted by the editors to mean that he did. As other commenters have suggested, this seems like an editorial failure in the rush to say "FIRST!" and severely damages the AP's reputation even with their retraction and response. I hate to imply that this isn't the first time, since I don't have the resources or time machines to back myself up, but I don't think this is the first time AP (or Reuters) has done this. Just maybe the most visible and recent. At risk of flame baiting, I am curious whether this retraction and correction will be taken into account when discussing the veracity of speeches given by former/potentially future political figures; per CNN: > Missile landing in Poland > > Trump claimed Tuesday that a missile that was “sent in probably by Russia” landed 50 miles into Poland. “People are going absolutely wild and crazy and they’re not happy,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago. > > Facts First: This claim is false. While Poland said a Russian-made missile did land in their territory Tuesday, killing two Polish citizens, the explosion happened about four miles west from the Ukrainian border. > > Additionally, it remains unclear where the missile was fired from, and why it fell in Poland. At the time, like many of us, Trump relied on the AP's reporting of the facts. Will he be blamed for "lying" long after? My guess is yes.
adamsb6 4y ago
Wild that they would go to press even with a single intelligence source. We know the CIA has used journalists to spread lies in the past, why wouldn't they be doing it now? For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM
googlryas 4y ago
I'm surprised but not surprised this all happens over slack and not via some more formal system aware of the rules around publishing a story. Ron Nixon could click a button on a launch document saying "I vetted the source per the rules", and not rely on someone saying something vague about the fact that he had vetted the source for past uses.
IncRnd 4y ago
The people in that Slack thread, except for the reporter James LaPorta, exhibited an incredible amount of willful ignorance that bordered on stupidity. The original statement was vague and did not name a source. It held the pretense of a source by saying an unnamed senior American intelligence official was in some capacity vetted by Ron Nixon. It's not clear whether the person was vetted as an official, if his words were vetted as correct, or whether the official was vetted as having said those words. Named officials, such as Presidents and Secretaries of State, get us into wars through misapplication of evidence and in some cases creation of evidence. These doomsday reporters and editors are nothing more than squabbling hacks, using third hand stories from second hand reporters that are then published by third party editors. I was in shock when I read, "I can't imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this." This thread contained people who should all have been fired, except for the person who was fired. Either that or pay for them to attend remedial journalism school. The road to hell is paved with good itentions, but your guides on that road are AP editors.
- xphilter 4y ago
  My mantra is that it’s always bad management. Insane that none of the managers or editors got fired here. What a mess!
- ekianjo 4y ago
  People seem to only discover now that AP is not even a remotely reliable organization. You just had to read their news to find out.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  All of us is not as smart as one of us. The thundering herds of groupthink and Tragedy of the Commons ensue.
- zapdrive 4y ago
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Dieselroar88 4y ago
It seems like the actual story here is entirely ignored: Why are a bunch of journalists concerned with how fast they can send out a push notification?? is the world that creates that incentive healthy? What can we do to remove the incentive that led to people having this kind of a discussion on a slack channel while one dude is at a doctors appointment? This seems like an utter failure of the editorial process in this case. Also the English language (and parentheticals) are hard!
- bombcar 4y ago
  Entire careers can be made by being first on the spot or first to report - this has been the case as long a journalism has been a thing. And journalists fight over that - it’s going to be hard to countermand as long as we want “news” and not “olds”.
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  On the plus side, we now live in a time where more such internals come to light (at least in Western democracies with free press) and news consumers can make their own informed choices which sources they read and trust. I've personally come to view AP more critical over the past years long before the rocket story. Their quality has gotten worse and they've become slightly political which a news agency should never be, their job is to report what happens in a neutral manner. Not that they're the only ones, it seems to be a general trend that media outlets increasingly feel they need to tell people what to think. Anyway they definitely messed up big time with that rocket story but if the chats are to be believed it seems like an honest mistake. I agree with you that this isn't how things should be done but in practice there's always been pressure to break stories as fast as possible. It's just the way the industry works and I'd at least partly blame this on the readers as well. People should prioritize quality and truth over speed but that's not how it works. Social media needs its news and it needs it now. If you wait hours or even a day until the situation is clear, at that point the discussions have already moved on.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    I saw an AP article recently that was obviously biased. The word choice the omissions on a topic I know a lot about. I did a double take on it. Turns out the author is an AP journalist, but works for CNN and has a long history of misrepresenting and omitting the facts about this topic. I agree AP is on the down slope.
GameOfKnowing 4y ago
It's terrifying to know that this is the process for an alert like that going out. I agree with other commenters that this looks like an editorial mistake, but even if not-- a bad-actor journalist (or someone having compromised their Slack account) can get a headline like this on a major wire service in ~10 minutes!? What?!
sva_ 4y ago
I wonder in how far this might be related to Elon Musk's post https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1595114334547365888#m https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1595114334547365888#m
- dagmx 4y ago
  This just lets him blast the media and deflect from criticisms, while fully avoiding the fact that he and his companies have made very large errors in the past too, granted nobody sane is looking at him for news of world affairs. Generally this is the standard playbook. “Look my <hand waived definition of enemy> is fallible once, so must always be fallible when criticizing me , but they’re trustworthy when it’s good stuff” This isn’t to excuse the AP. They really messed up, but Elon hamming it up is his usual disingenuous self.
- creatonez 4y ago
  Completely unrelated? Happened on a different day
phyzome 4y ago
What's with the assertion that countries would go to war over a hasty AP report? Pretty sure military action would be taken based on the same primary sources that the AP was relying on, not just taking the AP's word for it...
- faddypaddy34 4y ago
  Considering that Ukrainian leadership was tweeting that NATO needed to get involved after this story ran, despite the fact that they had to know where the missile originated is the real problem. They used this quickly ran story to literally try and rush WW3 instead of owning up to their mistakes.
  - coolspot 4y ago
    Third time is a charm
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  Russia likely sees the AP as a propaganda tool of the West, and as such treats it as semi-official.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  A war between NATO and Russia right now would almost only happen by accident. Someone misinterprets something and escalates which causes the other side to escalate which feeds back, etc etc. So, escalating tensions is dangerous.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  (Democratic) countries go to war depending largely on public support. If they think the population is going to quickly turn on them then they hesitate to commit themselves. As soon as this report was published I saw Reddit froth at the mouth to invoke Article 5 and call up Schwarzenegger and Rambo to teach the evil commie-nazis that this time they’ve crossed the line. I wouldn’t be surprised if 50% of them will never even hear this story was retracted and someone got fired over it. Reddit isn’t real life, but yes; there’s a large group of people who grew up experiencing war as an enjoyable clip show on CNN or as “Soldier returns home to puppy after 2 years in Iraq” on YouTube, who wouldn’t mind at all getting into yet another “war”.
sourcecodeplz 4y ago
I'm dumbfounded that something so serious (even mentioning Article 5) was rushed to publishing without at least a second source/more clarification. Really damages credibility of news reporting.
- johndevor 4y ago
  "This will make my career! ...what's that bright flash out the window?"
- nomdep 4y ago
  What credibility? They lost it years ago
  - unraveller 4y ago
    reputation grows back if you never admit fault
    - egberts1 4y ago
      Reputation takes a lot longer to get back, when the failure to admit your own fault finds you 100% at fault.
- anshumankmr 4y ago
  Honestly, a declaration of Article 5 would be one of the most significant events in the last 20 years and they really never gave it more thought than just being able to declare that they got a "scoop"
spookycrisp 4y ago
neilv 4y ago
There's not enough information here, and I also don't know how trustworthy it is. One way the AP could handle this situation is to bring in an outside investigation panel of impeccable credentials. Outside journalists could also investigate without approval (that's one of their capabilities), but access to information might be harder, and then there's the question of why AP isn't driving that.
ramesh31 4y ago
We've had AWACS in the air watching the Ukrainian border round the clock since Feb. 24. That means anything bigger than a seagull has been tracked with pinpoint precision from launch to terminus. Particularly so for anything that could have been fired from Russian positions. Anyone with a brain would have known to wait for the official US government statement before making a call on this. Total negligence.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dodgerdan 4y ago
  There’s still not been an “official call” on this either by Poland or the US. And Ukraine still insists they weren’t their missiles and insisting they have access to the investigation. It’s very peculiar. My personal view. They were Russian missiles, but it was 100% an error. NATO doesn’t want to have to respond so they blame Ukraine, Ukraine will use this to negotiate more weapons and air defenses.
JCM9 4y ago
This was a legit big screw up. I remember seeing the news alerts coming in thinking this could be the start of World War III.
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
> LaPorta did not exactly claim that Nixon had approved the source in this case, but his words were interpreted by the editors to mean that he did. I think that's a reasonable read. That's what I took away from it initially. He said an official source, which had been vetted, said a thing. The fact that he didn't make it clear that this source had not been vetted for this particular report is negligent at best.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  But he was vetted. It's this report that wasnt vetted. If Nixon's judgement was critical for this report then why didnt they confirm with Nixon?
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    I'm not saying there weren't other failures here, just that LaPorta was vague. On purpose or not, he was vague, and that began the cascading failure event.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Yes, either very poor wording or deliberately trying to imply something that he knew wasn't actually the case while still having plausible deniability.
- cpleppert 4y ago
  One person commented specifically that the source was vetted (not the story). There was also another comment about how they couldn't believe a senior intelligence could be wrong ( so no reason to get a second source). This doesn't really make sense if the story was vetted by a senior editor. Also, why would a senior editor make any difference about the credibility of a story? Thats the reporters job. If the senior editor signed off on the story why then he would have immediately put the story out. Either the source is wrong or LaPorta was confused about "Russian missile" i.e. was it Russian made or fired by the Russian Federation?
benced 4y ago
Say what you will about the tech industry but most startups have better processes than this for a crisis situation. There’s a lot the conventional world could learn about the development of incident response ops in the tech world IMO.
- ollien 4y ago
  I dunno about you but this chat had the same chaotic energy of every outage chat I've ever been in. Definitely some different consequences, but the "sending a push if there's no objections" sounds eerily like something I'd see when trying to mitigate a problem.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
Seems if anyone were to be fired it would be the editor who decided to push send, not the reporter with the tip.
atarian 4y ago
It always scares me how easy it is to make assumptions that end up totally backfiring like this.
refurb 4y ago
Jesus. The quality of discussion in that thread ranks right up there with Reddit. These are the people who are writing world-changing news everyday. And the worst part is they even mention "Will this trigger article 5?". So they know just how big the implications of the story are but decide to run it because "US intelligence [via unnamed source] can't be wrong!". And these are the same organizations that rail again "disinformation".
glitchc 4y ago
It's very simple. They didn't add the word "allegedly" because they trusted the source. The reporter made it seem like the anonymous source was trustworthy and they trusted the reporter's claim on this. That missing word got the reporter fired.
harry8 4y ago
I have doubts about whether a source who has supplied misinformation should continue to be given anonymity. Is this unfashionable? Seems that maybe should a case arise where a government official lies in a way that is consistent with getting the public to support military action, they are not a "source" and deserve no protection whatsoever. They should go from feeding the false story to being the true story in short order. Is that nuts? What am I missing? These kinds of liars will avoid speaking to your publication in the future and that's a bad thing? Something more?
- function_seven 4y ago
  You're not nuts, but the side-effects of this would destroy the sourcing for all other news. Imagine you work at $INTEL_AGENCY, and you truly believe that a missile was fired from Russia. That info came across your desk from two separate analysts or trusted sources or whatever. You leak this to a reporter. Then it turns out that your info was wrong and the reporter outs you as the source. Will anyone ever be a source under these circumstances? Even if they're acting in good faith? No. Not worth he risk of destroying your career or even your freedom. If I'm a reporter, I will put this name in my own "Brady" list of untrustworthy sources, but I won't make all future sources wary of me by outing them.
  - harry8 4y ago
    At what point is it no longer tenable to say it was an honest mistake? What did the source have to gain from leaking the story? How do you avoid being used by some other source to plant a false story in the future? How do you avoid this source picking someone else to plant their next one? Is there really no way to balance "destroy all sourcing for other news" with "not be a patsy for WMD style propaganda?"
- mongol 4y ago
  Like eating the goose that lays golden eggs. Why be the source to a news org if they can suddenly turn on you and make you the news?
  - 4y ago
twblalock 4y ago
This entire affair has exposed the people who police "misinformation" as hacks. Simply suggesting that the missile might not have been Russian was shouted down and would have been banned on Twitter if you-know-who didn't own it. This is how all the news is handled. It's not an isolated incident. If reporters are bad at handling a situation like this, they must be bad at handling other situations too. And the so-called fact-checkers base their information on stuff like this.
29athrowaway 4y ago
The morons almost caused WW3.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mikeb85 4y ago
Was the story false? Because Polish government sources also strongly suggested it was Russian until a meeting with Biden, where they backpedelled hard... As of right now, the Polish investigation is ongoing and it's never actually been confirmed that it's a Ukrainian missile. But the story's been buried. So was the AP source not vetted and did the journalist screw up or did officials change the narrative for political reasons? The US has not said anything more definitive than it was "probably" a Ukrainian missile... As for the reporter being fired, feels like a scapegoating...
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Ukraine shot down a Russian airliner in 2001 during joint exercises because of a crappy S-200. It happens.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    Which has nothing to do with this incident.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  Unfortunately, we the people might not know the real truth for years. We have to acknowledge that there is a very real incentive for NATO to spike an attribution of Russian military missile on NATO in order to prevent escalation by popular demand. High level military officials and select diplomats will be the ones with first hand info and the ability to decide the geopolitical move on what is sent to the news.
miguelazo 4y ago
The source needs to be outed!
mlindner 4y ago
Interesting that the only man in the entire conversation is the one fired while all the rest are women.
miguelazo 4y ago
- bboygravity 4y ago
  You might want to add the sarcasm tag just in case people miss the sarcasm.
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    Sadly quite true.
egberts1 4y ago
Let me get this right. A Soviet-made (pre-USSR) S-300 was fired from within Ukraine to outside of her border. S-300 was (presumably from Internet-source) manufactured within Ukraine (during Soviet days). So we should really be looking into: - how was it hooked up the S-300 fire and control to the Internet, securely or unsecurely. - who wrote the S-300 software - who fired the weapon ... arguably remotely. Of course, I assume that fire and control has "Internet" option for maximum military flexibility. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_missile_explosion_in_Poland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_missile_explosion_in_Po...

202 points by danso 4y ago

A cursory glance (which ironically is probably what created this dangerous misinformation) suggests to me that news agency haste to be first to announce something was the primary factor in this miscommunication. I now wonder if pre-internet news was as prone to these kind of mistakes since it took so much longer to publish news (thereby giving sources more time to confirm things).

ghaff 4y ago
There's at least some truth to that. There was still a lot of time pressure over whether the presses should roll or not. But it wasn't a continuous process that strongly rewarded publishing this very second. For a filmic example of the process of holding presses and then going with the story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBXuyRXNIHE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBXuyRXNIHE&t=1s
ARandomerDude 4y ago
Actually the fact that it took longer to publish and distribute the paper, but it still had to be in everyone’s driveway before work, produced a major time crunch for publishers. In 1948, for example, the Chicago Tribune assumed Truman would lose the election and published it as fact on the front page in order to make their print deadline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman

ncallaway 4y ago

Frankly, this seems like an editorial mistake not a journalists mistake. Unless he completely made up the information he received, or lied about the attribution in the internal slack chat, he should not have been fired for this. This was an editorial error. In fact, the exact information he passed along was factually correct by one interpretation. The S-300 rockets were "Russian" in the sense that they were Russian manufacturing. They were not "Russian" in the sense that they were fired by Russian armed forces (to the best of our knowledge). Really think the AP has tried to pin the blame on this one reporter incorrectly.

ajross 4y ago
That seems likely, but you still don't let the reporter off the hook. "Technically correct by one interpretation" isn't the standard for journalistic sourcing. He needed another source or more context (just an identification of these as AA missiles would have been enough to kill the story) and didn't get one. It was a messup on a few different axes, but it's started with bad journalism. Whether or not the guy was fired as a scapegoat or to cover up someone else's mistake is, heh, not something we have reportable sourcing for.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > just an identification of these as AA missiles would have been enough to kill the story I understand why "Russia fires on Poland" is news. Why is "Ukraine fires on Poland, blames Russia" not news?
  - ajross 4y ago
    > Why is "Ukraine fires on Poland, blames Russia" not news? Because that's not what happened? That's spin. In fact Ukraine jumped on this story only once the AP published it. It's popular to attribute this to Ukrainian propaganda in some circles, but (heh, again getting to the actual subject at hand) that's not something you can report unless you can find evidence. All the facts we know point to the Ukrainian government being just as fooled by the AP story as we were.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      And it’s not impossible to dream up a world where that kind of mistake would actually get Article 5 moving.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Ukraine is still insisting that they didn't fire the missile. It's not an oversight or a misinterpretation.
    - eshch 4y ago

remarkEon 4y ago

>I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this Has this AP reporter been asleep for … their entire career? Charitably, I can interpret this as the reporter thinking they wouldn’t make up something about a potential Article 5 event, but - and maybe it’s my cynicism about this war - wouldn’t that mean you’d want to guarantee that what you’re saying is super precise? “Russian missiles hit Poland” vs “Russian missiles fired by Ukraine hit Poland” obviously mean very different things. Doesn’t look like LaPorta did anything wrong here, necessarily, and this looks like an editorial problem to me.

0x_rs 4y ago
You can always retract your statements and pieces, most of the time the evidence isn't as glaring and it just goes unnoticed. I firmly believe prioritizing shock value in journalism is dangerous and without brakes it'll keep getting worse, and some will absolutely, inevitably pay for it because misinformed people acted in some unpredictable way. Especially in such a propagandized conflict. Speaking of US officials, or from any country at all, they don't really care about evidence. It's political games that news media feeds with like vultures, sometimes. >It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine. >President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions. from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-...
mc32 4y ago
Who say things like “American missiles fired by Ukraine?” It would only make sense to say that if US troops on the ground hosted by Ukraine fired the missiles. It’s stupid. No one says Chinese AK-47s fired by Ukrainian soldiers. Someone was playing stupid.
- remarkEon 4y ago

mardifoufs 4y ago

Qoah so they really threw him under the bus. Crazy that the editorial staff didn't even pause when article 5 was brought up. It seems like something you might want to really be sure about, and ask more questions on who did it (not just making sure that missiles actually landed somewhere). Extremely careless

morpheuskafka 4y ago
Surely the actual militaries (at least Poland and the US who would presumably be the primary decision makers) would have actual knowledge of what happened/what their confidence in that was. I believe they fairly quickly clarified that the missiles were not suspected to have come from Russia. At any rate, if they were wrong too seeing the AP publish it citing their own intelligence as a source wouldn't have made them any more confident in their analysis.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  They obviously wouldn't, but it could cause escalation. If Russia thought that NATO had its causis belli, it's a dangerous situation no matter what. Again, you are right that it is not likely at all that any side would act on a mere report, but the stakes are so high that even a 1% chance of a misunderstanding is very dangerous.
europeanguy 4y ago
> Crazy that the editorial staff didn't even pause when article 5 was brought up. What I think would be crazy was if this news was real and some nobody journalists were sitting on this info based on those kind of considerations. I mean, these aren't the people I want making such decisions. Let them pass on the information they have as accurately as possible, and let an elected representative act on it.

aaron695 4y ago

jimmygrapes 4y ago

> But while Nixon had approved the use of that specific anonymous source in the past, people involved said, Nixon was not aware of that tip or that story. LaPorta did not exactly claim that Nixon had approved the source in this case, but his words were interpreted by the editors to mean that he did. As other commenters have suggested, this seems like an editorial failure in the rush to say "FIRST!" and severely damages the AP's reputation even with their retraction and response. I hate to imply that this isn't the first time, since I don't have the resources or time machines to back myself up, but I don't think this is the first time AP (or Reuters) has done this. Just maybe the most visible and recent. At risk of flame baiting, I am curious whether this retraction and correction will be taken into account when discussing the veracity of speeches given by former/potentially future political figures; per CNN: > Missile landing in Poland > > Trump claimed Tuesday that a missile that was “sent in probably by Russia” landed 50 miles into Poland. “People are going absolutely wild and crazy and they’re not happy,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago. > > Facts First: This claim is false. While Poland said a Russian-made missile did land in their territory Tuesday, killing two Polish citizens, the explosion happened about four miles west from the Ukrainian border. > > Additionally, it remains unclear where the missile was fired from, and why it fell in Poland. At the time, like many of us, Trump relied on the AP's reporting of the facts. Will he be blamed for "lying" long after? My guess is yes.

adamsb6 4y ago

Wild that they would go to press even with a single intelligence source. We know the CIA has used journalists to spread lies in the past, why wouldn't they be doing it now? For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM

googlryas 4y ago

I'm surprised but not surprised this all happens over slack and not via some more formal system aware of the rules around publishing a story. Ron Nixon could click a button on a launch document saying "I vetted the source per the rules", and not rely on someone saying something vague about the fact that he had vetted the source for past uses.

IncRnd 4y ago

The people in that Slack thread, except for the reporter James LaPorta, exhibited an incredible amount of willful ignorance that bordered on stupidity. The original statement was vague and did not name a source. It held the pretense of a source by saying an unnamed senior American intelligence official was in some capacity vetted by Ron Nixon. It's not clear whether the person was vetted as an official, if his words were vetted as correct, or whether the official was vetted as having said those words. Named officials, such as Presidents and Secretaries of State, get us into wars through misapplication of evidence and in some cases creation of evidence. These doomsday reporters and editors are nothing more than squabbling hacks, using third hand stories from second hand reporters that are then published by third party editors. I was in shock when I read, "I can't imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this." This thread contained people who should all have been fired, except for the person who was fired. Either that or pay for them to attend remedial journalism school. The road to hell is paved with good itentions, but your guides on that road are AP editors.

xphilter 4y ago
My mantra is that it’s always bad management. Insane that none of the managers or editors got fired here. What a mess!
ekianjo 4y ago
People seem to only discover now that AP is not even a remotely reliable organization. You just had to read their news to find out.
1letterunixname 4y ago
All of us is not as smart as one of us. The thundering herds of groupthink and Tragedy of the Commons ensue.
zapdrive 4y ago
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago

Dieselroar88 4y ago

It seems like the actual story here is entirely ignored: Why are a bunch of journalists concerned with how fast they can send out a push notification?? is the world that creates that incentive healthy? What can we do to remove the incentive that led to people having this kind of a discussion on a slack channel while one dude is at a doctors appointment? This seems like an utter failure of the editorial process in this case. Also the English language (and parentheticals) are hard!

bombcar 4y ago
Entire careers can be made by being first on the spot or first to report - this has been the case as long a journalism has been a thing. And journalists fight over that - it’s going to be hard to countermand as long as we want “news” and not “olds”.
trompetenaccoun 4y ago
On the plus side, we now live in a time where more such internals come to light (at least in Western democracies with free press) and news consumers can make their own informed choices which sources they read and trust. I've personally come to view AP more critical over the past years long before the rocket story. Their quality has gotten worse and they've become slightly political which a news agency should never be, their job is to report what happens in a neutral manner. Not that they're the only ones, it seems to be a general trend that media outlets increasingly feel they need to tell people what to think. Anyway they definitely messed up big time with that rocket story but if the chats are to be believed it seems like an honest mistake. I agree with you that this isn't how things should be done but in practice there's always been pressure to break stories as fast as possible. It's just the way the industry works and I'd at least partly blame this on the readers as well. People should prioritize quality and truth over speed but that's not how it works. Social media needs its news and it needs it now. If you wait hours or even a day until the situation is clear, at that point the discussions have already moved on.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  I saw an AP article recently that was obviously biased. The word choice the omissions on a topic I know a lot about. I did a double take on it. Turns out the author is an AP journalist, but works for CNN and has a long history of misrepresenting and omitting the facts about this topic. I agree AP is on the down slope.

GameOfKnowing 4y ago

It's terrifying to know that this is the process for an alert like that going out. I agree with other commenters that this looks like an editorial mistake, but even if not-- a bad-actor journalist (or someone having compromised their Slack account) can get a headline like this on a major wire service in ~10 minutes!? What?!

sva_ 4y ago

I wonder in how far this might be related to Elon Musk's post https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1595114334547365888#m https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1595114334547365888#m

dagmx 4y ago
This just lets him blast the media and deflect from criticisms, while fully avoiding the fact that he and his companies have made very large errors in the past too, granted nobody sane is looking at him for news of world affairs. Generally this is the standard playbook. “Look my <hand waived definition of enemy> is fallible once, so must always be fallible when criticizing me , but they’re trustworthy when it’s good stuff” This isn’t to excuse the AP. They really messed up, but Elon hamming it up is his usual disingenuous self.
creatonez 4y ago
Completely unrelated? Happened on a different day

phyzome 4y ago

What's with the assertion that countries would go to war over a hasty AP report? Pretty sure military action would be taken based on the same primary sources that the AP was relying on, not just taking the AP's word for it...

faddypaddy34 4y ago
Considering that Ukrainian leadership was tweeting that NATO needed to get involved after this story ran, despite the fact that they had to know where the missile originated is the real problem. They used this quickly ran story to literally try and rush WW3 instead of owning up to their mistakes.
- coolspot 4y ago
  Third time is a charm
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
Russia likely sees the AP as a propaganda tool of the West, and as such treats it as semi-official.
jrochkind1 4y ago
A war between NATO and Russia right now would almost only happen by accident. Someone misinterprets something and escalates which causes the other side to escalate which feeds back, etc etc. So, escalating tensions is dangerous.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
(Democratic) countries go to war depending largely on public support. If they think the population is going to quickly turn on them then they hesitate to commit themselves. As soon as this report was published I saw Reddit froth at the mouth to invoke Article 5 and call up Schwarzenegger and Rambo to teach the evil commie-nazis that this time they’ve crossed the line. I wouldn’t be surprised if 50% of them will never even hear this story was retracted and someone got fired over it. Reddit isn’t real life, but yes; there’s a large group of people who grew up experiencing war as an enjoyable clip show on CNN or as “Soldier returns home to puppy after 2 years in Iraq” on YouTube, who wouldn’t mind at all getting into yet another “war”.

sourcecodeplz 4y ago

I'm dumbfounded that something so serious (even mentioning Article 5) was rushed to publishing without at least a second source/more clarification. Really damages credibility of news reporting.

johndevor 4y ago
"This will make my career! ...what's that bright flash out the window?"
nomdep 4y ago
What credibility? They lost it years ago
- unraveller 4y ago
  reputation grows back if you never admit fault
  - egberts1 4y ago
    Reputation takes a lot longer to get back, when the failure to admit your own fault finds you 100% at fault.
anshumankmr 4y ago
Honestly, a declaration of Article 5 would be one of the most significant events in the last 20 years and they really never gave it more thought than just being able to declare that they got a "scoop"

spookycrisp 4y ago

neilv 4y ago

There's not enough information here, and I also don't know how trustworthy it is. One way the AP could handle this situation is to bring in an outside investigation panel of impeccable credentials. Outside journalists could also investigate without approval (that's one of their capabilities), but access to information might be harder, and then there's the question of why AP isn't driving that.

ramesh31 4y ago

We've had AWACS in the air watching the Ukrainian border round the clock since Feb. 24. That means anything bigger than a seagull has been tracked with pinpoint precision from launch to terminus. Particularly so for anything that could have been fired from Russian positions. Anyone with a brain would have known to wait for the official US government statement before making a call on this. Total negligence.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dodgerdan 4y ago
There’s still not been an “official call” on this either by Poland or the US. And Ukraine still insists they weren’t their missiles and insisting they have access to the investigation. It’s very peculiar. My personal view. They were Russian missiles, but it was 100% an error. NATO doesn’t want to have to respond so they blame Ukraine, Ukraine will use this to negotiate more weapons and air defenses.

JCM9 4y ago

This was a legit big screw up. I remember seeing the news alerts coming in thinking this could be the start of World War III.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago

> LaPorta did not exactly claim that Nixon had approved the source in this case, but his words were interpreted by the editors to mean that he did. I think that's a reasonable read. That's what I took away from it initially. He said an official source, which had been vetted, said a thing. The fact that he didn't make it clear that this source had not been vetted for this particular report is negligent at best.

nonethewiser 4y ago
But he was vetted. It's this report that wasnt vetted. If Nixon's judgement was critical for this report then why didnt they confirm with Nixon?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  I'm not saying there weren't other failures here, just that LaPorta was vague. On purpose or not, he was vague, and that began the cascading failure event.
SoftTalker 4y ago
Yes, either very poor wording or deliberately trying to imply something that he knew wasn't actually the case while still having plausible deniability.
cpleppert 4y ago
One person commented specifically that the source was vetted (not the story). There was also another comment about how they couldn't believe a senior intelligence could be wrong ( so no reason to get a second source). This doesn't really make sense if the story was vetted by a senior editor. Also, why would a senior editor make any difference about the credibility of a story? Thats the reporters job. If the senior editor signed off on the story why then he would have immediately put the story out. Either the source is wrong or LaPorta was confused about "Russian missile" i.e. was it Russian made or fired by the Russian Federation?

benced 4y ago

Say what you will about the tech industry but most startups have better processes than this for a crisis situation. There’s a lot the conventional world could learn about the development of incident response ops in the tech world IMO.

ollien 4y ago
I dunno about you but this chat had the same chaotic energy of every outage chat I've ever been in. Definitely some different consequences, but the "sending a push if there's no objections" sounds eerily like something I'd see when trying to mitigate a problem.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

Seems if anyone were to be fired it would be the editor who decided to push send, not the reporter with the tip.

atarian 4y ago

It always scares me how easy it is to make assumptions that end up totally backfiring like this.

refurb 4y ago

Jesus. The quality of discussion in that thread ranks right up there with Reddit. These are the people who are writing world-changing news everyday. And the worst part is they even mention "Will this trigger article 5?". So they know just how big the implications of the story are but decide to run it because "US intelligence [via unnamed source] can't be wrong!". And these are the same organizations that rail again "disinformation".

glitchc 4y ago

It's very simple. They didn't add the word "allegedly" because they trusted the source. The reporter made it seem like the anonymous source was trustworthy and they trusted the reporter's claim on this. That missing word got the reporter fired.

harry8 4y ago

I have doubts about whether a source who has supplied misinformation should continue to be given anonymity. Is this unfashionable? Seems that maybe should a case arise where a government official lies in a way that is consistent with getting the public to support military action, they are not a "source" and deserve no protection whatsoever. They should go from feeding the false story to being the true story in short order. Is that nuts? What am I missing? These kinds of liars will avoid speaking to your publication in the future and that's a bad thing? Something more?

function_seven 4y ago
You're not nuts, but the side-effects of this would destroy the sourcing for all other news. Imagine you work at $INTEL_AGENCY, and you truly believe that a missile was fired from Russia. That info came across your desk from two separate analysts or trusted sources or whatever. You leak this to a reporter. Then it turns out that your info was wrong and the reporter outs you as the source. Will anyone ever be a source under these circumstances? Even if they're acting in good faith? No. Not worth he risk of destroying your career or even your freedom. If I'm a reporter, I will put this name in my own "Brady" list of untrustworthy sources, but I won't make all future sources wary of me by outing them.
- harry8 4y ago
  At what point is it no longer tenable to say it was an honest mistake? What did the source have to gain from leaking the story? How do you avoid being used by some other source to plant a false story in the future? How do you avoid this source picking someone else to plant their next one? Is there really no way to balance "destroy all sourcing for other news" with "not be a patsy for WMD style propaganda?"
mongol 4y ago
Like eating the goose that lays golden eggs. Why be the source to a news org if they can suddenly turn on you and make you the news?
- 4y ago

twblalock 4y ago

This entire affair has exposed the people who police "misinformation" as hacks. Simply suggesting that the missile might not have been Russian was shouted down and would have been banned on Twitter if you-know-who didn't own it. This is how all the news is handled. It's not an isolated incident. If reporters are bad at handling a situation like this, they must be bad at handling other situations too. And the so-called fact-checkers base their information on stuff like this.

29athrowaway 4y ago

The morons almost caused WW3.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Mikeb85 4y ago

Was the story false? Because Polish government sources also strongly suggested it was Russian until a meeting with Biden, where they backpedelled hard... As of right now, the Polish investigation is ongoing and it's never actually been confirmed that it's a Ukrainian missile. But the story's been buried. So was the AP source not vetted and did the journalist screw up or did officials change the narrative for political reasons? The US has not said anything more definitive than it was "probably" a Ukrainian missile... As for the reporter being fired, feels like a scapegoating...

selimthegrim 4y ago
Ukraine shot down a Russian airliner in 2001 during joint exercises because of a crappy S-200. It happens.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Which has nothing to do with this incident.
reducesuffering 4y ago
Unfortunately, we the people might not know the real truth for years. We have to acknowledge that there is a very real incentive for NATO to spike an attribution of Russian military missile on NATO in order to prevent escalation by popular demand. High level military officials and select diplomats will be the ones with first hand info and the ability to decide the geopolitical move on what is sent to the news.

miguelazo 4y ago

The source needs to be outed!

mlindner 4y ago

Interesting that the only man in the entire conversation is the one fired while all the rest are women.

miguelazo 4y ago

bboygravity 4y ago
You might want to add the sarcasm tag just in case people miss the sarcasm.
- miguelazo 4y ago
  Sadly quite true.

egberts1 4y ago

Let me get this right. A Soviet-made (pre-USSR) S-300 was fired from within Ukraine to outside of her border. S-300 was (presumably from Internet-source) manufactured within Ukraine (during Soviet days). So we should really be looking into: - how was it hooked up the S-300 fire and control to the Internet, securely or unsecurely. - who wrote the S-300 software - who fired the weapon ... arguably remotely. Of course, I assume that fire and control has "Internet" option for maximum military flexibility. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_missile_explosion_in_Poland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_missile_explosion_in_Po...