Perhaps you heard the AP news story that Wall Arch in Arches National Park collapsed. Well, the AP got the story wrong. Here’s the story:
The Associated Press: Iconic stone arch collapses in southern Utah park
The article says, “He [Paul Henderson, the park’s chief of interpretation] said it’s the first collapse of a major arch in the park since nearby Landscape Arch fell in 1991.”
However, Landscape Arch didn’t fall in 1991. It’s still up. A piece of the arch did fall off in 1991, but the rest of the arch is still there. So is Paul Henderson a crappy park ranger (I doubt it) or did the AP misquote him (more likely)?
This illustrates an interesting thing about modern news. If this were a blog article or Wikipedia, then people in the know could dispute and correct the mistake. But it’s the Associated Press, an old-school news agency with no external checks and balances. So I see all over the web reposts of this same AP article with the same error, but there’s no way to say, “Hey, AP, you got this part of it wrong!”
By the way, I’ve seen Wall Arch and Landscape Arch several times, but not recently. Maybe I should go see Landscape Arch before it finally collapses, too.