Unsurprisingly organisers of the London Marathon are outraged by the recent Dispatches programme.

Broadcast only days before the key date in their year Channel 4’s undercover investigation ‘lifted the lid’ on how much it costs to stage the marathon, and how much of the money generated reaches charities.

The show’s conclusion – that of £17.8m received last year, only £4.5m was given to the London Marathon Charitable Trust and therefore made its way to good causes – has been described by Marathon organisers as breathtakingly ignorant and also poorly evidenced.

Regardless of the quality of the investigative journalism, didn’t anyone else think that the programme entirely missed the point?

The money that is raised each year thanks to the London Marathon is not £17.8m, nor is it the percentage of revenue from entry fees and advertising that the organisers put into a charitable trust.

The money that is raised each year is the huge sum donated in sponsorship by individual runners, their friends and families.

Compared to this even the entire £17.8m of revenue earned by London Marathon Ltd pales into insignificance. In 2008 alone almost £47m was raised by runners.

It is these individuals who, at the same time as they train for a gruelling test of physical endurance, raise thousands for charities each year.

To undermine their efforts and motivation at such a critical stage of their preparations seems totally unfair.

The target of the programme may have been the high earning employees of London Marathon Ltd but the only people it actually harmed were the runners and the charities they are supporting.