Piers Morgan

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Image:Piers morgan hignfw.jpg Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born March 30, 1965 in Newick, East Sussex) was editor of The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid newspaper, from 1995 until 2004.<ref name="sack">Template:Cite news</ref> He has also pursued careers in writing and television.

1 Career in newspapers
2 Career in television
3 Piers Morgan and Ian Hislop
4 Books
5 References
6 External link

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Career in newspapers

His first job (from 1989 to 1994) on a national newspaper was writing a show business column for The Sun.

He was editor of the News of the World from 1994 to 1995. Both at that paper and later at the Daily Mirror he was known for his scorn of celebrities' demands for privacy, claiming that they could not simultaneously manipulate the media to further their careers without accepting some level of intrusion into their private lives. This was in the context of claims that Diana, Princess of Wales had been doing this in the latter years of her life.

Piers Morgan's judgement has frequently been called in to question. At the News of the World Morgan was fired shortly after publishing photographs of Victoria, Countess Spencer, then wife of the Charles Spencer, The Earl Spencer leaving a detoxification clinic. This action ran against the editors' code of conduct, a misdemeanour for which the Press Complaints Commission took Morgan to task. Rupert Murdoch was reported as having said publicly that "the boy went too far". Morgan's autobiography The Insider indicates that he left the NotW of his own choice and somewhat against owner, Robert Murdoch's, wishes when he was offered the job of Editor at the Daily Mirror.

As editor of the Daily Mirror, in 1996 Morgan was widely criticised for a headline "Achtung Surrender" a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships. The story was written by Justin Dunn.

In 2000 he was the subject of an investigation after it was revealed that the had bought £67,000 worth of shares in computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy.<ref name="lie">Template:Cite news</ref> He was found to have breached the code of conduct on financial journalism by the Press Complaints Commission, but Morgan kept his job. The City Slickers columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were found to have committed more breaches, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, another enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry resulted in the DTI saying that Morgan would not face charges <ref name="cleared">Template:Cite news</ref>. On 7 December 2005, Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act.

The Daily Mirror attempted to move upmarket in 2002, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. Morgan rehired John Pilger, who had been sacked nearly twenty years earlier during Robert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite the changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation, admittedly something shared by its direct rivals, The Sun and the Daily Star. At the British Press Awards in March 2004, he was punched by TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson after the Mirror had published compromising photos of Clarkson.

He was fired from The Daily Mirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of faked Iraqi prisoner abuse photos allegedly representing abuse by British Army soldiers. The Daily Mirror claimed it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax", and apologised for the publication. At this juncture, Morgan also had a monthly interview column in GQ magazine.

In May 2005, in partnership with Matthew Freud, he gained ownership of the Press Gazette, a media trade publication together with its 'cash cow' the British Press Awards, in a deal worth £1 million.<ref name="pgdeal">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="prop">{{cite news | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1494334,00.html | title=Piers Morgan turns proprietor with purchase of Press Gazette | publisher=The Guardian | date=May 28, 2005}}</ref> This ownership is cited as one of the reasons many major newspapers have boycotted the 2006 awards.<ref name="boyc">Template:Cite news</ref>

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Career in television

Morgan's career has diversified in recent years in to television presentation and proprietorship. In 2003 he presented a three part television documentary series for the BBC titled The Importance of Being Famous, which was about fame and how celebrities are covered by the modern media.

He has co-hosted his own current affairs interview show on Channel 4, with Amanda Platell called Morgan & Platell. The show was dropped after three series allegedly because of poor ratings, though the chairman of Channel 4 Luke Johnson was reported not to like the programme.

Morgan was reported in December 2005<ref name="talent">Template:Cite news</ref> to be developing a new series You're Fired and to be a panelist in a forthcoming talent show for ITV1 based on the US series The Gong Show. It was reported in the Evening Standard on 21 Feb 2006 that Morgan was 'in talks' with ITV to take over Paul O'Grady's chat show, following a successful pilot.

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Piers Morgan and Ian Hislop

Morgan appeared as a guest on Have I Got News for You in 1996 during which he and Ian Hislop failed to keep their mutual contempt off-screen. Hislop directly accused him of having him followed and his house watched. The conflict escalated, indeed at one point Angus Deayton asked if they wished to go outside and have a fight, and by the end of the programme Morgan had implied that Hislop would be "getting new neighbours" (meaning photographers sent by him) and had been defeated in a strangely infantile attempt to get the studio audience to renounce Ian Hislop. It was not the best possible experience for Morgan (he is quoted as comparing watching it on TV to "watching a car crash"), but made for great entertainment. Piers' disastrous guest spot became one of HIGNFY's most famous incidents. On the news of his sacking, the show repeated the clip.

Private Eye, of which Hislop is editor, routinely refers to Morgan as "Piers Moron" (or, in a twist on the common practice of inserting a nickname in inverted commas between first name and surname, as 'Piers "Morgan" Moron'). The Eye originally referred to him as Piers 'Boy' Morgan, based on Murdoch's reference to him as 'the boy' mentioned above. During his time at the Mirror, Morgan frequently threatened to publish damaging stories about Hislop, and while they never appeared, Piers has staged numerous petty attacks on Hislop such as gate-crashing a book signing with 'protestors' proclaiming 'Gnome Go Home'.

The Eye has also mocked Morgan for his relationship with Marina Hyde, who writes the Diary in The Guardian, not least because both parties were then married to other people. Their involvement became known, via leaked amorous emails, while Hyde was working for The Sun and Morgan was Mirror editor, which also received some comment. Hyde subsequently returned to her husband.

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