![]() ![]() The Associated Press blasts alerts out to its hundreds of news partners around the world at lightning speed, and updates stories continually as they evolve. The Associated Press took the story down, and issued a correction saying that “subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.” NATO officials later determined that the missiles were likely fired by Ukrainian air defense. But it was wrong, as is often true amid the fog of war and wartime journalism. ![]() The initial tip may have been a true accounting of what senior officials thought in the minutes after the explosion in Poland. What I passed along is all I know at the moment,” he said.ĭeputy European news editor Zeina Karam ultimately decided to publish, believing that Nixon had vetted the source, and the alert was sent out at 1:41 PM ET, less than ten minutes after LaPorta’s initial message.īut the story was false. When Leff asked if LaPorta could put together a story, he told the Slack channel that he was not around. “That call is above my pay grade,” LaPorta replied. Lisa Leff, an editor on the European desk, immediately asked if the wire service could send an AP alert, or if they would need confirmation from another source. 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. LaPorta described the source as an “official (vetted by Ron Nixon),” referring to the publication’s VP of news and investigations.īut 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. On Tuesday afternoon at 1:32 PM ET, LaPorta wrote in an internal Slack channel that he’d been told by a senior US intelligence source that Russian missiles crossed into Moldova and Poland. The Beast reported that LaPorta left “the impression that the story’s sourcing had been approved.”īut the slack messages on which the incident played out tell a different story, of honest mistakes, internal confusion, and a lack of a clear process that led to a disaster for one of the few news organizations whose Twitter presence is an authoritative account of world affairs. Both stories quoted AP sources and put the blame squarely on the reporter. LaPorta’s firing was first reported by the Daily Beast, and confirmed by the Washington Post. ![]()
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