The difference between sensationalism and raising a serious issue is this: sensationalism is where you state your story using the worst case interpretation of the statistics, without explaining this to the reader — or just plain misinterpretation. Serious discussion of a real issue is where you quote statistics that show there is a problem even under conservative assumptions.

So it is disappointing to see the usually excellent Motley Fool veering into sensationalism with its articles on consumer credit. So what if consumer credit has quadrupled in 12 years? — that tells us nothing without allowing for inflation and economic growth.

Their starting figure for 1993, 53 billion pounds, is about 8.3% of 1993's GDP. Their estimated figure for 2005 is 193 billion pounds, about 16.2% of estimated current GDP. So it would be entirely sensible to say that consumer debt had doubled; and that is enough to say it's a growing problem. Saying that it has quadrupled, OTOH, is misleading, and is exactly the sort of thing that gives statistics a bad name.