The Associated Press has fired the reporter who broke the story that said Russia fired missiles that killed two people in Poland.
James La Porta has been dismissed after being seen as responsible for the November 15 story that said Russia carried out the missile strike, people at AP familiar with the decision have said.
Mr LaPorta, who had worked at AP since 2020, said: "I would love to comment on the record, but I have been ordered by the AP to not comment."
It is not widely believed that the Russian-made antiaircraft missiles were fired by Ukraine on NATO neighbour Poland.
AP is believed to be the first news organisation outside of Polish media to report on the strike itself last week.
Blaming Russia for the strike sparked international fears over NATO's commitment to respond to an attack on a member country.
Furthermore, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky falsely blamed the Russian for the missile.
Eventually, AP's report couched the incident by reporting the Polish Foreign Ministry's statement that it was a Russian-made missile.
The AP issued a formal correction on its story the next day.
Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP, said: "We review any egregious mistakes that are made.
"We take our standards very seriously. If we don't live up to our standards, we don't have any choice but to take action. Trust in the AP and trust in our report is paramount."
AP is also looking to review its standards on the use of anonymous sourcing.
The initial bulletin was attributed to a "senior U.S. intelligence official," with no explanation of why the person was granted anonymity.
AP policy requires a reason for granting anonymity, and later the story was updated to say the official wasn't named due to the sensitive nature of the situation.
Part of AP's guidelines states a reporter must get approval from a news manager, who is told the source's identity.
In this case, Mr LaPorta said in an internal Slack message that his source had been vetted by Ron Nixon, an AP vice president and head of investigations, enterprise, partnerships and grants.
However, Mr Nixon claims he had no knowledge that the source was being used for this particular story and development, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Ms Pace said: "Anytime that we have an error, and certainly an error of this magnitude, we have to stop.
"We have to make sure we have the right policies when it comes to anonymous sources and reporting on sensitive information, and we need to make sure that our staff is trained properly and has a clear understanding of how to implement these standards."
