Well, the blame's correctly ascribed, it's Russia's fault that any missiles are flying at all.

Um, even though this was not fired by russia, it actually is in the flight path of missiles that hit Ukraine from Belarus. This would be a missile that landed short of its target, not one that flew all across Ukraine and went too far for some reason.

Nah, this wasn't really bringing the world any closer to war. NATO has their own sources, they don't rely on the AP to tell them what's going on in the war lol

Nah, this is the same thing that all the organizations do - blame/fire the person lowest down on the chain, while the higher-ups skate free. Nothing laudable here, I think.

Wait, but it's the editors' decision whether to run the story or not.

They knew perfectly well that the story had just the one source, ran the story anyway, then decided to fire the reporter instead of the people who made the decision to run the story.

> That’s the best way to manage journalists that people have come up with, hold them to task and fire them if they ever lie.

Wait, but this journalist didn't lie. As far as he know he told the whole truth - his source was a senior US official (and in fact he had used this source for other stories previously), he accurately reported what this senior US official told him. He did not mislead or lie.

The editors decided to run with the story, but then when the source turned out to be wrong, decided to scapegoat the reporter instead of taking responsibility for their decision as well.

So why's the reporter being the one fired here, not the editor who decided to publish the story with only one anonymous source?

Did the journalist "not follow rules" though?
To me it seems like the journalist didn't break any rules, and was pretty forthright about both the source and the tip. Firing him seems like scapegoating.