Having previously written to Alan Rusbridger on the subject of the Guardian's handling of the Lancet Iraq study, I contacted Ian Mayes, the Guardian's "readers' editor" on the same subject earlier this week. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Mr Mayes,

I recently sent the following letter to Alan Rusbridger [available further down, dear reader], concerning the discrepancies in the Guardian's reporting of the Lancet report, which has previously been the subject of attention in the Guardian itself. I have thus far received no response - and this is not my first letter on the subject. I would be glad if you would follow up this complaint. The Guardian's uncritical acceptance and repetition of the DRC estimate, arrived at by the same team using the same methodology, compared with the level of doubt it cast on the Lancet study, raises some very troubling questions about the level of genuine critical independence the paper exercises. There is more information and documentation on this available here:

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/05/050905_burying_the_lancet_part1.php
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/05/050906_burying_the_lancet_part2.php

Thanks,

Tim Holmes

He promptly got back to me, with this:

Tim, thanks for your email. I've spoken to Julian Borger who was responsible for that line. I'm running this correction on MOnday:

In a panel accompanying a report on Iraq headlined Bush calls it progress etc, page 19, March 20, we referred to estimates of the number of Iraqis killed, saying they ranged from “a conservative 30,000 to a more speculative 100,000”. “Speculative” was an inappropriate word to use. The figure was based on research cited in the Lancet in November 2004 and there was no intention to suggest that the figure was somehow inflated.

best wishes

Ian Mayes

The emphasis on the idea that the figure was somehow inflated was not really my concern - more that the word "speculative" suggests the figure was more or less drawn from a hat, rather than the result of patient, authoritative research and standard sampling and extrapolation techniques. Nonetheless, "based on research" is at least an acknowledgement of this, and I am pretty well satisfied with this redress. So thanks to Ian Mayes.

NOTE: David Edwards of Medialens points out, "The Guardian was, and is, wrong to talk of 'Iraqis' killed rather than 'Iraqi civilians' - both the Iraq Body Count (IBC) and Lancet figures refer to civilians. The Lancet figure is also, of course, eighteen months old. The minimum IBC figure is currently 33,773." The first point here, I have to admit, completely passed me by - it is certainly of crucial importance to acknowledge that these are specifically civilian casualties. So it seems that the Guardian is still struggling to report the truth - and that I may have been rather too quick to applaud them.