USA Today posted an outstanding example of the worst sort of sensationalistic reporting in a story about drug use within the military, Ecstasy invading the ranks.
The basic gist of the story is that, “Drug testing by the Air Force, Army and Navy indicates that usage is as much as 12 times what it was two years ago.” Of course whether or not a 12-fold increase is worriersome depends a lot on what the original baseline for drug use two years ago was, and here is where the story falls apart.
In the Air Force example, a grand total of 500 people out of 375,000 active USAF members tested positive for Ecstasy or admitted to using the drug. It sounds more spectacular to say drug use increased 12-fold in only two years rather than pointing out that only 1.3 people in 1,000 used Ecstasy in the Air Force.