The agency sacked James LaPorta over an erroneous news alert, the Daily Beast and Washington Post reported
The Associated Press has fired the journalist behind its since-retracted story, which claimed that the missile that hit NATO member Poland last week had been launched by Russia, a number of US media outlets have reported.
The news that the agency had terminated its contract with investigative reporter James LaPorta after a brief internal probe was broken by the Daily Beast on Monday. The sacking was later confirmed to the Washington Post by “people at the news organization.”
Last Tuesday, AP issued a news alert citing “a senior US intelligence official,” who claimed that “Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people.”
Such an event would constitute a major escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, given that an attack on one NATO member is supposed to trigger a response from the entire US-led military bloc. The…
