Example 1
The rate of drug use by teenagers had been declining steadily from 1979 to 1992. In the words of the 1995 Survey on Drug Abuse, "In 1992, the rate of past month use among youth aged 12-17 reached a low of 5.3 percent, the result of a decline from 16.3 percent in 1979. By 1994, the rate had climbed back to 8.2 percent, and in 1995 it increased again to 10.9 percent.' See the figure below.
At the time of the report, there was a debate as to whether the Clinton Administration could be properly blamed for the increase. Leave aside the issue of responsibility. What is curious here is the response of the then presidential advisor, George Stephanopoulos. He pointed out in 1996 that teenage drug use during the Clinton Administration was now lower than it was at a comparable time in the Reagan Administration. This was an absolutely true statement, but misleading. During the Reagan and Bush Administrations, teenage drug use was declining from a high, whereas during the Clinton Administration drug use was increasing from a low. The point here is not to draw conclusions about different drug policies, but to illustrate the technique of careful, though deliberately misleading, selection of data points.
Example 2
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) is a Left-leaning advocacy group masquerading as a dispassionate truth squad out to debunk errors in reporting. The notion that the "United States is number one" rankles FAIR to the marrow of its bones so it felt an uncontrollable need to debunk John Stossel's ABC television report of the same name. When Stossel reported increased incomes in the United States, FAIR argued that median rather than mean income was a better measure. FAIR then correctly claimed that inflation adjusted median income had reduced from 1989 to 1997.
Why did they pick 1989 and 1997 as comparison points? In 1989, inflation-adjusted median income had reached its 1980's economic boom peak. A recession followed in the early 1990s. Since that low point, the economy has rebounded. Here are numbers for household median income pulled from the Census Bureau.
| Year | Median Household Income | |||
| 1969 | $33,072 | |||
| 1979 | $34,666 |
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