...poorly edited news articles?

Check out this gem from Reuters, "Berlusconi attack prompts Italy soul searching". (Emphasis mine in each example.)

The third paragraph decides certain prepositions are unnecessary when it tells us that Berlusconi "was complaining sharp pains in the head and face".

The fourth paragraph throws comma use out the window: "Some commentators said the attack would help Berlusconi whose high ratings have been hit by accusations of corruption and sex scandals."

In the seventh paragraph, we are given the following nonsense: "The word 'hate' was used in many headlines and commentators as Italy searched its soul". (To which Groucho Marx might respond, "Inside of a commentator, it's too dark to write.")

In the eighteenth paragraph (fourth from the end), someone decided that hyphens are now out of style: "Berlusconi allies strongly attacked Antonio De Pietro, an ex magistrate who now heads a small opposition party".

Meanwhile, AFP has run out of verbs for its first paragraph of "Greece readies debt measures, unions threaten action": "The Greek government is later Monday to outline measures to combat the worst debt crisis in the country's modern history but its plans are threatening to spark fierce union resistance."

Doesn't anybody read these articles before they're published?

...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."