...journalists who abuse the English language?

The word "data" is a plural noun. The singular form is "datum". Why, then, are these Associated Press journalists writing "skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was" and "[i]t is not clear if any data was destroyed" (my emphasis)?

And take a gander at this sentence:

"And most of those e-mails, which stretch from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails."

I'm curious: is the term "handful" so precise that we need the modifier "about" in order to add the required element of imprecision? And why the repetition of "e-mails"? Finally, can e-mails really "stretch" over a period of time?

I'd write this sentence as follows: "And most of those e-mails, written in a period stretching from 1996 to last month, are from only a handful of scientists."