Richard Peppiatt - harrassed

Only brave and morally strong individuals will put themselves out of pocket and make a stand when their action will bring alienation and loss of earnings but Hugh Muir’s article in the Guardian illustrates the story of one man willing to go out on a limb..

Hugh Muir wrote:

Richard Peppiatt, who worked as a freelance for the Daily Star, says that the process of writing for the paper became corrosive

A drink with Richard Peppiatt. I'm buying because he is between jobs, as the thespians say. That's an understatement. He is not the first freelance journalist to decide he can't stomach the tasks required by his regular employer. Certainly he is not the first to flee Richard Desmond's embrace. But Peppiatt, 26, who plied his trade on the Daily Star, is the first in recent memory to go out in a hail of gunfire. He doesn't seem an impulsive type. He says he isn't. He was there for two years. It was a long time coming.

No situation is perfect, and there is a lot that a young man will put up with when he is well paid and ambitious. Stories that don't quite fit the headlines above them, quotes that don't match what the subject said. And, in his case, quite a few headlines created to fit the paper's narrative of minorities in general and Muslims in particular as bad lots, despoilers of society. He wrote many of the accompanying stories, but tells me that the process became corrosive.

The last straw: a sexed-up front page about the English Defence League and his paper's admiring editorial. His parting shot, a long and excoriating letter to Richard Desmond, released to the media, eagerly picked up by bloggers and on Twitter. "The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke's head caved in down an alley in Bradford," it said.

You could have just quit, I tell him. "But then they would have just had someone replace me and it would all carry on," he said, slowly sipping his Guinness. "I thought this way would put pressure on them; make them think."

No sign as yet of a re-evaluation, for the Star denies his accusations. No new job opportunities either, and that's bad. A man's got to eat.

Still, he has other things; emails from all over the world that make him smile, a supportive family and, he says, a feeling that finally his life is one he can live with. "So many people do good work to bring communities together. For newspapers to undo that to make a few quid is despicable. It took me too long to realise, but I am not prepared to be part of it." A new journey starts with that single step.

Harrassed: Ex-Daily Star reporter 'gets hate messages'.

Main picture: Richard Peppiatt.