The Associated Press fired veteran reporter James LaPorta (pictured) after they were forced to retract his story about Russian missiles landing in Poland. Leaked internal messages reveal the journalist deferred judgement on the piece to higher-ups but was fired anyway
* The correspondence occurred on Slack hours before AP filed the alert Tuesday
* James LaPorta reported a 'senior US official' said the missile was Russian
* The Associated Press retracted the story the following day
* LaPorta, 35, was fired Monday after he 'violated' their standards, they said
* The Slack messages obtained by global news platform Semafor paint a different picture, and suggest the reporter was not responsible for the erroneous report
The Associated Press' firing of a reporter over a false story about a missile strike in Poland last week has come into question, as leaked messages reveal the journalist deferred judgement on the piece to higher-ups but was canned anyway.
The correspondence transpired on Slack Tuesday, minutes before the outlet filed a news alert that that 'a senior US intelligence official' said 'Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland.' The attack, the report from the wire service noted, left two dead.
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Update: Associated Press blunder: Leaked internal messages show what led to erroneous Russian missile report (FOX News)
WNU Editor: It looks like he is the scapegoat for AP's editors not doing their job properly. On a story as big as as this one .... Russia attacking a NATO country .... everyone should have been involved, and the facts checked multiple times.
3 comments:
I’m sure he’s pushed his fair share of bullshit and doesn’t deserve to be a foreign correspondent. Still, even if the story had turned out to be 100% of his own making, it’s ultimately the editors who should have had to take responsibility for printing it. That is their main function and they (normally) get held to a much higher standard than the lowest level journalists. I guess what I’m saying is that he was a scapegoat no matter what.
The AP needs to be hauled before Congress to explain itself. This bad reporting is inexcusable but was it intentional? That question must be answered and Congress is a start.
LaPorta received good tips from government sources before. For years. Maybe his whole career to this point. His peers work the same way.
Is it the only way to have a career in journalism?
It is not like you can leave the rat race and become a beat reporter on AnyCity, USA. Those jobs are gone. The only demotion he could countenance in journalism is maybe the top 20 cites as a beat reporter. Smaller cites do not have any of those anymore. Not zero, but a massive decrease and getting smaller every year.
So the tips had been good (& single sourced tips were de rigueur), but some people in government needed or wanted an outcome, so they used LapPorta as a cutout (to protect themselves form blowback). When the ploy does not work, they burned him.
The tips had been good and perhaps LaPorta never conceived that we was expendable or would be burned.
LaPorta is not special. The way he reported news is not a bug. It is a feature.
If they sack the editors too, then too many people are hurt and they will squawk and give the game up. So they settle on only one scapegoat not the whole chain.
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