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

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

#51

Post by ninth_ant »

Dieselroar88 wrote: post #23

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 thi…

The news publishing business has a tremendous amount of unhealthy incentives. Rather few good ones, really.

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

#52

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

> 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.

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

#53

Post by pessimizer »

HWR_14 wrote: post #15
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Two main reasons 1) Article 5. If Poland is attacked NATO would have to use whatever force was needed to protect it. In Russia's case, that means war against a nuclear power. In Ukraine's case, it means telling them NATO'll stop delivering weapons and Ukraine can fight Russia alone unless they apologize. Even if there was a war with Ukraine, it's not a nuclear power and wouldn't last long against NATO. 2) It was an a…

> Russia launching on Poland could have been intentional.

If we assume that Russia is dying to give NATO an excuse to escalate, i.e. that they're insane and want to destroy the world.

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

#54

Post by pessimizer »

ajross wrote: post #9
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> 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 governm…

Ukraine is still insisting that they didn't fire the missile. It's not an oversight or a misinterpretation.

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

#55

Post by jrochkind1 »

phyzome wrote: post #30

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...

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.

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

#56

Post by Jarwain »

ajross wrote: post #12
HWR_14 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . He needed another source or more context To publish, maybe. He was at a doctors appointment, got a tip, and passed it to his boss. He didn't write the news alert. If they wanted more context, the other people on the chat should have found some.

That's not how I read the linked story? That particular Slack message happened to coincide with his doctor's appointment, but the article that printed had his byline on it. Surely he wrote it, or at the very least dictated it to an editor who put it in the system. No one publishes stories on the wire based on a two-message slack thread sent from the doctor's office!

That's exactly what it looks like happened, though!

He posts the received tip at 1:32, mentions his doctors appt at 1:38. Lisa says sending alert at 1:40.

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

#57

Post by dagmx »

sva_ wrote: post #29

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

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 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.

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

#58

Post by pessimizer »

ncallaway wrote: post #3

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 m…

Can anybody knowledgeable tell me why Ukraine would have old-ass Soviet missiles left? I would naïvely assume that old munitions would be long gone (aren't we like 8 months in?) and replaced with shiny US stuff.

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

#59

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

pessimizer wrote: post #58
ncallaway wrote: post #3

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 m…

Can anybody knowledgeable tell me why Ukraine would have old-ass Soviet missiles left? I would naïvely assume that old munitions would be long gone (aren't we like 8 months in?) and replaced with shiny US stuff.

I think that they want to get rid of their old stuff (and the best way to do that, is throw it at the Russians). Maybe those missiles were protecting something of a lower priority, than the "shiny" kit.

Also, the most important aspect of any enterprise, is the human. These folks trained for years, on Russian kit, and know it backwards and forwards.

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

#60

Post by HWR_14 »

pessimizer wrote: post #53
HWR_14 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two main reasons 1) Article 5. If Poland is attacked NATO would have to use whatever force was needed to protect it. In Russia's case, that means war against a nuclear power. In Ukraine's case, it means telling them NATO'll stop delivering weapons and Ukraine can fight Russia alone unless they apologize. Even if there was a war with Ukraine, it's not a nuclear power and wouldn't last long against NATO. 2) It was an a…

> Russia launching on Poland could have been intentional. If we assume that Russia is dying to give NATO an excuse to escalate, i.e. that they're insane and want to destroy the world.

If you replace "Russia" with "Putin" it's possible that he would rather end the world than lose in Ukraine. And it's possible that he would need to generate the escalation to justify ordering the ICBMs to fly, otherwise the commanders might decline.
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