Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

semafor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 181 posts

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

#111

Post by baybal2 »

eshch wrote: post #106
mc32 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#112

Post by eshch »

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 should know not from AP whose missile it was, but they are still in denial, can you imagine?

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

#113

Post by mc32 »

eshch wrote: post #106
mc32 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Given the vintage I expect they are Soviet missiles —though the actual factory of these unlike Anyonov were/are in the Moscow general area.

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

#114

Post by eshch »

ajross wrote: post #4
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…

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 fir…

>just an identification of these as AA missiles would have been enough to kill the story

Oh, you don't know the story how Ukraine constantly blames Russia for striking civilians by repurposed S-300 missiles!

I bet this is the reason they are still in denial about the Poland incident. Because it breaks the legend and points to the real cause: issues with the missiles they launched. Meanwhile there is a constant flow of videos where Ukraine's S-300 missiles fly into land.

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

#115

Post by devindotcom »

IncRnd wrote: post #22

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…

I feel your clear and general disdain for the press is coloring your interpretation of events here and the reality of editing and sourcing.

There was an editorial failure, certainly, but in a rapidly changing situation due to a misunderstanding of the evidence given by a vetted source (such sources are seldom named even internally). Don't forget five or six nations were "squabbling" over the origin and nature of these missiles for days afterwards. Russian missiles did hit Poland, but they were Russian-made, not Russian-launched. It's not hard to imagine how easily this message could be muddled somewhere between Lviv and New York.

The person saying US intel was unlikely to be wrong was not evincing a blind trust in government but expressing that a vetted source was unlikely to volunteer information of this nature, in this situation, that was inaccurate, given that Poland had essentially confirmed there was a crisis event unfolding.

It was not a third hand story (US intel official claimed direct knowledge), reporters are not second hand (they interpret, contextualize, and synthesize) and editors are not third party (they are an integral part of the news process).

News organizations are under immense pressure from every quarter. It is very easy to pick apart the process in retrospect and suggest they should have distrusted a trusted source or questioned the somewhat ambiguous wording of the message from the reporter. News, and reporting about war especially, is complex and messy - remember this all took place within 9 minutes.

That does not make these people "doomsday reporters," "hacks," or that they need to be fired and attend remedial journalism school. It was an honest mistake not unique to virtual newsrooms but exacerbated by them. They retracted the story when it was clear that the intel their source provided was mistaken, fired the reporter for, I would guess, failing to communicate and handle the news properly, and likely chastised the editors for erring too far on the side of shipping the news.

Sorry for this long comment, I just completely disagree with your assessment.

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

#116

Post by eshch »

mc32 wrote: post #113
eshch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Given the vintage I expect they are Soviet missiles —though the actual factory of these unlike Anyonov were/are in the Moscow general area.

Some factories were in Ukraine, the factory even did some stuff for S-300 after USSR broke.

https://uk-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%96%D1%83%...

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

#118

Post by burnerrrre »

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…

I get what you’re saying but also larger weapon systems often get referred to by their country of origin. Reason being is threat labeling/studying I think in the face of weapon sales. “Russian vs American artillery” gets eval’d a lot without referring to Russian and American soldiers, for example. “Iranian drones in Ukraine.” And so on. If the person quoted is from that background, easy to see this happening. It’s not a hard and fast rule but I don’t see as much justifiable outrage as you do.

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

#119

Post by boomboomsubban »

mc32 wrote: post #74
remarkEon wrote: post #13

>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…

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.

Headlines like "US bombs dropped on bus full of children" are somewhat common in stories about the war in Yemen.

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

#120

Post by selimthegrim »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #110

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 politica…

Ukraine shot down a Russian airliner in 2001 during joint exercises because of a crappy S-200. It happens.
Post reply on HN