Not taken in by radio word-play

I thought Jane O’Hara’s letter (MW September 11) was absolutely spot on. Your response was outrageous. In the original article about radio research you said “trials… have shown beyond reasonable doubt that there are significant flaws in the diary system” .

You now say you stand by the phrase, except you omitted the “trials have shown beyond” bit, thus changing the meaning, and making it appear that your original assertion was fair and it wasn’t.

I suggest a good phrase to stand by is “trials have shown that there’s considerable doubt about the accuracy of (the current) electronic meters”. I’m not against the idea of meters, but they could do with being accurate before we jump in with both feet.

On reflection Kelvin MacKenzie must be very proud of what he’s “proved” – there seems to be 5 mil

lion people who listen to his station every week but don’t remember that they did. Such memorable programming and branding!

Paul Fairburn

Managing director

Chrysalis Radio Midlands

Birmingham

The suggestion in the second paragraph is a good one. We do stand by the “unexpurgated” version – Ed.