WAVE-3 , a Louisville, Kentucky NBC-affiliate, fired assignment editor Aaron Ellis after he apparently outed another reporter’s source.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Ellis saw co-worker Natalia Martinez in a car talking with a man in WAVE’s parking lot. Then “he called one of his contacts in the Louisville Metro Police Department and suggested they run the vehicle’s license plate,” where they found out the car belonged to a police detective who was talking to Martinez for a story without police department permission.

“Ellis, who had worked at the station for 19 years, wouldn’t comment on the record, but he did not dispute an account provided to The Courier Journal,” the paper reported.

iMediaEthics has written to WAVE and Ellis via Twitter.