Mr David Salter writes (May 2006) that after a draft report on Alan Jones arrived on my desk when I was Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) chairman, its original conclusions were mysteriously recast.

This is an invention.

The general manager and legal counsel of the ABA had already instructed that the report be rewritten before I saw it. This was not so much as to its conclusions; it was as to its style, which the general manager described as “tendentious”.

The general manager briefed me on this development because I asked for it. My principal concern was that the matter had been delayed. Any of the other six members of the board were free to ask for a similar briefing. On receiving the briefing, I merely noted this. I gave no instructions, and in due course a revised draft was presented to the board, and cleared by the general manager and the legal counsel.

Mr Salter could have easily ascertained this by calling me, or by a reference to my book, Malice in Media Land, or, perhaps more persuasively, by consulting Hansard, where the evidence given by the general manager to the Senate Estimates Committee may be found.