Mark
Piggott's
website

What the hell’s happened to the Mirror? Day after day after day its X-Factor this, Simon Cowell that – as if HE cares his crap ditty got pipped to the top of the charts by Rage against the Machine – he’s there on the front page on his jet skis in the Caribbean FFS.

For someone brought up on The Mirror when John Pilger was still a great journalist, exposing the lies around Vietnam, the genocide in Cambodia and major features on homelessness – it’s very upsetting to see this great paper so reduced. Most of the columnists are putrid; if it wasn’t for the still excellent Brian Reade and Jim Shelley I’d never buy the rag again.

I neither know nor care who the editor is these days – the only time I worked for the paper Phil Walker was in charge and he was a courageous man – but if I were the editor now I’d take a long look through the archives to see exactly what campaigning tabloid journalism can achieve.

Though it’s something of a generalisation, I’ve long felt that letter writers to the Mirror represent the best of Britain; tolerant, sensible and humanitarian, whereas letter writers to the other tabloids (you know who I mean) represent all that is small, mean and cynical about our country.

The Mirror’s readers are crying out for incisive reporting, hard campaigning and a counterweight to the dross that is celebrity culture. By leading on the X Factor, Strictly and associated piffle the paper is betraying its long, proud heritage – and its readers.

P. S. Yeah, I know - I bet they’re quaking in their boots down at the Wharf now Piggott’s roundly condemned them in his latest blog...