Scathing Letter to Richard Desmond, From a Daily Star Reporter Who Quit Due to Papers Anti-Muslim Stance

If you haven't seen the letter to Richard Desmond from former Star reporter Richard Peppiatt, then I suggest you do so now. (Letter in full here) At first I thought it might be a spoof (albeit a good one) from a left wing blogger, but it seems like the real deal. The prose of this letter is wonderful (one example about the Muslim loos thing, he says how the paper got all "flushed" over the story!). It is loaded with very funny barbed sarcasm and contempt for the journalistic atrocities Dirty Desmond has committed. The letter is a surreal and damning insight to Desmond's empire. He describes how he just made stuff up about Kelly Brook off the top of his head. Dressed in a burqua and wore M&S underpants at the same time. Tried to propose to Susan Boyle (she declined his offer btw!!). That; apparently stories about Jordon (not the country) took precedence over the Egyptian uprising. That the paper only has one reporter to cover the entire North of England, and that they just pinch stories off the Mails website. That the stories it prints wouldn't stand up to a "gnats fart". All of this he surmises looks to Desmond as:

"[I] suspect you see a perfect circle. I see a downward spiral. I see a cascade of shit pirouetting from your penthouse office, caking each layer of management, splattering all in between."

I'm not saying his time at the Star is laced with a healthy dose of cynicism!

The letter has a more serious point to make, and it seems the straw that broke this camels back was the dubious EDL coverage the paper gave, stuff about how the EDL was to become a proper political party. (actually all the story was about was Tommy Robinson, the EDL leader - wanted the EDL to become a political party.) and the incessant anti- Muslim sentiment of the paper. And it is here that Mr. Peppiatt hammers the nail squarely on the head:

"You may have heard the phrase, "The flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas." Well, try this: "The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke's head caved in down an alley in Bradford."

If you can't see that words matter, you should go back to running porn magazines. But if you do, yet still allow your editors to use inciteful over insightful language, then far from standing up for Britain, you're a menace against all things that make it great."

It's not often that I give someone from Fleet Street credit, but kudos to this guy. If a few more have the balls to vote with their feet, who knows?