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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

#101

Post by ncallaway »

elihu wrote: post #25
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…

> "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)." I think if the reporter knew the missiles were fired by Ukrainian forces but manufactured by Russia, then he's ultimately resp…

> I think if the reporter knew the missiles were fired by Ukrainian forces but manufactured by Russia, then he's ultimately responsible for…

I agree with this completely.

> In this case though I think it's more likely that his source told him something that wasn't true…

My point was that it could also been that the source told him something that was true, but the thing he understood it to mean was false.

So, source says “a Russian S-300 missile hit Ukraine” (where Russian was just intended to be a clarification about the manufacture of S-300), the journalist misunderstands as “a Russian launched missile hit Ukraine”, and writes the slack message.

Obviously, this is just a hypothetical, but it’s an example of why editorial should’ve waited until they had another source, and taken time to clarify/vet.

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

#102

Post by twblalock »

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.

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

#104

Post by HWR_14 »

pessimizer wrote: post #92
HWR_14 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a celebrity Putin created by propaganda who is a rabid foaming maniac, and there's the real Putin, who hasn't ever seemed particularly irrational, or even overly adventurous. There's also a war with Russia, a whole country, that a lot of people have sought to reduce to Putin, but as adults we don't have to pretend that Russia is an appendage to a single great man's will.

The real Putin isn't irrational, but he is fairly adventurous, launching wars for territory against smaller neighbors quite a bit (I think 5 times now.) But there is also the "Putin has terminal cancer" rumor, where he wants to reassemble Greater Russia or blow up the world trying, as he's running out of chances to shoot his shot.

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

#105

Post by ollien »

benced wrote: post #67

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.

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.

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

#106

Post by eshch »

mc32 wrote: post #79
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…

Do people often say when reporting on wars: Chinese AK-47s killed 20 civilians in Afghanistan, or do they say 10 Isis fighters fired AK-47s killing twenty civilians in Kabul? Oh, Twenty American guided missiles killed Houthi fighters —but but they were fired by Saudi Arabian forces from Saudi Arabia. Or French Exocet missiles killed blah blah blah in blah blah blah (without further context?) You want to know who in h…

You will be surprised how many times in the news about those missiles they were specifically called Russian-made/produced.

Another funny fact that most likely it's USSR-made missile. I don't think Ukraine bought any arms from Russia, so everything they have is USSR-made they were an integral part of.

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

#107

Post by sudosysgen »

remarkEon wrote: post #81
mc32 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you saying that LaPorta, a Marine so he’s probably more likely to be familiar with these weapons systems than other non-military veteran journos, is playing stupid in the thread about the manufacturing origins of those missiles? The origin, both manufacturing and who fired them, seems pretty relevant in this war because both sides are using a lot of the same weapons systems.

The missiles aren't even Russian made. They're Soviet made, and there's a fair chance they were even made in Ukraine at least partly. Yes, someone is playing dumb here.

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

#109

Post by nomdep »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #34

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.

What credibility? They lost it years ago

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

#110

Post by Mikeb85 »

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...

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