Or is it just a narrative service, and a malleable one at that? The Associated Press published this tweet on Thursday October 6 at 12:24. It eventually got taken down, but not before it got tons of circulation.

Here’s a screenshot:

It is a sad story for obvious reasons: Americans trapped on an island devastated by a hurricane. The bridge to the mainland was destroyed and people are stranded days later.

I’m happy to say that the story isn’t true. In a remarkable feat Governor DeSantis has managed to arrange to have the bridge replaced in record time. In fact, the bridge was opened up yesterday. And it is no secret that the bridge was up and running. The governor tweeted it out and residents were understandably grateful for the quick response to their troubles.

Construction on the Pine Island bridge has been completed today – just three days after construction began.

Happy to have the state step in and help get our Pine Island residents back on their feet. pic.twitter.com/a8GqPoHtP1

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

How can this happen? The Associated Press is hardly some random blogger like me without the resources to check their facts independently, and yet their social media team tweets out a story from 4 days ago as if it were current.

Obviously I can’t say precisely what happened in this one instance, and I won’t go so far as to suggest that they were just trying to make the governor look bad. It seems implausible that they would put something out there that would be so instantly debunked. It harms their credibility far far more than it does DeSantis’.

The precise circumstances behind re-releasing the tweet are much less significant than the fact that this happened at all. The Associated Press feeds pretty much every news organization in the country. It is the backbone of the entire news industry. Not a major publisher itself, its content finds its way just about everywhere because it is seen as a reliable distributer of news.

Other organization often take the facts provided to them by the AP and then expand upon or spins the content to their liking. If the AP is incompetent, biased, or misleading in any way then pretty much all news is suspect.

Yet here we are. The AP in this case is at minimum incompetent, and by putting this story out as if it were fresh news it is misleading the people who provide us the news. I can assure you beyond doubt that many reporters take what comes off the wire and run with it. They don’t check dates. They certainly don’t fact check, because AP is supposed to be the Gold standard in facts.

There really isn’t much more to say, except that everything you read is suspect to some extent or another. I know that I have been burned by relying on sources that turned out to be less than reliable, but I still expect that when I read something from the AP I can trust their integrity and competence.

Another illusion dispelled.