Journalist Fahd Husain has raised serious questions about the credibility of a CBS News report claiming Pakistan shielded Iranian military aircraft, revealing that one of the story’s lead reporters was previously fired from the Associated Press (AP) for erroneous reporting.
In a segment on his show and through posts on X, Husain pointed out that James LaPorta, a National Security Coordinating Producer at CBS News, has a history of high-profile professional failures involving poorly sourced information.
“This gentleman has a very interesting history which we found out while we were researching it,” Husain stated. “He was fired by AP because of a wrong story”.
LaPorta was dismissed by the AP in November 2022 after being found responsible for a bulletin that wrongly stated Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people.
Subsequent reporting established that the missiles were Russian-made but fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.
The Washington Post and The Hill both covered his dismissal, with The Hill noting that the report had relied on a single anonymous source before being retracted.
Husain displayed screenshots from the AP, The Washington Post and The Hill on air to back his claim. “He gets fired from AP for fake news, is now hired with CBS and now gives the story,” Husain said. “That tells you about the credibility of the story”.
Husain, who has previously worked with CBS News himself, had already taken aim at the report separately, saying it was “based only on two unnamed officials who make claims not corroborated by any evidence” and that he was “embarrassed how much this once reputable news organisation has degraded”.
The CBS report, published Monday, alleged that Pakistan had quietly allowed Iranian military aircraft to park on its airfields, potentially shielding them from American airstrikes, citing unnamed US officials.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) rejected the report the following day, calling it “misleading and sensationalised” and saying the aircraft had arrived as part of logistical arrangements tied to the Islamabad Talks between Tehran and Washington DC.
The ministry said that some aircraft remained in anticipation of a second round of talks and that the Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan “bears no connection whatsoever to any military contingency or preservation arrangement”.
Several Pakistani journalists also pushed back.
Hamid Mir said that Iranian aircraft carrying a negotiating team arrived after the ceasefire, not during active conflict, and that both US and Iranian aircraft were parked at Nur Khan after the first round of talks.
CNN’s Sophia Saifi said that the report had “no real grounding in reality” and read “more like a hit piece”.
Kamran Yousaf attributed the report to “spoilers and regional actors” unhappy with the Pakistan-US relationship under President Donald Trump.
