I thought I read recently that a lot of these local news stations are having stories being written by news bots. While the grammar is correct, it's not common to write it that way. A bot wouldn't know the difference.
There is also the fact that depending on the spot on that beach, the top of the cliff is between 200 and 500 feet from the sand. Maybe she's coming off a hard drunk and mailed the story in.
You might be on to something. That particular turn of phrase in the context used is not something a “bot” would necessarily detect as being discordant.
“...the top of the cliff is between 200 and 500 feet from the sand.”
At least it wasn’t “between 200 to 500” feet. That’s another fairly new grammer screw-up that has become common usage on TV news. 200 to 500 is a range, not a distance. How can anything be located between a range?