CNN’s Piers Morgan Implicated in Phone Hacking at Daily Mirror
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on December 21, 2011
CNN's Piers Morgan, on the hot seat for possible involvement in phone hacking in UK
Piers Morgan, hired by CNN to replace talk show host Larry King and currently an unabashed and ardent shill for Barack Obama, is in a tub of hot water for his alleged involvement in phone hacking while he was editor at the UK’s tabloid Daily Mirror.
Morgan is proclaiming his innocence, that he had never authorized phone hacking. Former business columnist James Hipwell, however, has said that phone hacking was common practice among his colleagues at the Daily Mirror and that the illegality of it was not ever questioned.
What a tangled web we weave…
From BBC, Piers Morgan tells Leveson: Daily Mirror did not hack phones:
Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has told the Leveson Inquiry he was not aware of any phone hacking taking place at the paper while he was in charge.
Speaking via video link, he told the media ethics hearing: “I have no reason… to believe it was going on.”
Mr Morgan admitted hearing a recording of a message from the phone of Sir Paul McCartney’s former wife but would not say who had played it to him.
He said he was not “directly involved” in the use of private investigators.
Mr Morgan was the Mirror’s editor between 1995 and 2004. He also edited the News of the World (NoW) between January 1994 and November 1995.
He denied suggestions that phone hacking was “endemic” at the Mirror.
“Not a single person has made a formal or legal complaint against the Daily Mirror for phone hacking,” he told the inquiry.
Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Mr Morgan about the recording of a voicemail message left by former Beatle Sir Paul for his then-wife Heather Mills, when the couple were suffering marriage problems.
Addressing the London hearing from the US, where he is a TV presenter for CNN, Mr Morgan said he had listened to a tape of Ms Mills’ message but said: “I can’t discuss where that tape was played or who made- it would compromise a source.”
Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson said he was happy to call Ms Mills to see whether she had granted permission for the message to be listened to.
Mr Morgan said: “All we know for a fact about Lady Heather Mills McCartney is that in their divorce case Paul McCartney stated as a fact that she had recorded their conversations and given them to the media.”
When asked if it was unethical to listen to phone messages, Morgan said: “It doesn’t necessarily follow that listening to someone else talking to someone else is unethical.”
From Hollywood Reporter, Piers Morgan ‘Must Have Known’ About Hacking, Former Colleague Testifies — James Hipwell said he thought that illegal interception was “entirely accepted” by senior editors at the Daily Mirror:
LONDON – On Tuesday, CNN host Piers Morgan told the Leveson inquiry that he had “no reason” to believe that phone hacking took place when he edited the Daily Mirror. On Wednesday, a former colleague told the inquiry that it was “a daily part” of newsgathering at some parts of the paper.
Giving evidence under oath at the inquiry into phone hacking, former business columnist James Hipwell said that phone hacking was very much the norm among his colleagues.
“The illegality of it was never questioned,” he said. “It was seen as fair game, fair play. Any means to get a story.”
Hipwell, who left the paper after being jailed for buying and selling shares that he tipped in his Mirror column (Morgan also bought and sold tipped shares), said he sat next to the team covering celebrity news, so understood how they worked.
“It became, I think, a daily part of their news-gathering operation,” he said of his colleagues dealing with celebrities.
Hipwell said Morgan must have known about the technique and its use because he was such a “hands-on” editor, overseeing the newsroom floor daily.
“Looking at his style of leadership I would say it was very unlikely that he did not know what was going on, because, as I have said, there wasn’t very much he didn’t know about,” he said.
From The Guardian, What does CNN do with Piers Morgan now?:
If CNN wants an incisive big-name interviewer, it should consider hiring Robert Jay QC, who put Piers Morgan through a far tougher interview than Morgan has managed on his primetime show on CNN.
When CNN signed Morgan to replace the venerable Larry King as its primetime interviewer, “they haven’t hired Mother Teresa,” as Morgan himself put it. But until the abuses of the British press were brought so sharply to light earlier this year, CNN surely did not realise what it had got itself into.
Thanks to Jay and the Leveson inquiry into the seamy underside of the British media, CNN now knows a lot more than it did when it signed Morgan to a multimillion-dollar contract in 2010.
Repeatedly pressed by Jay and Leveson to explain his past statements and career – which may or may not have involved phone hacking – Morgan’s memory became worryingly unreliable. By the end of Jay’s questioning the imperious interviewer familiar to viewers of Piers Morgan Tonight was reduced to sullen, one-word answers delivered with curt annoyance.
The difficult question for CNN is: what does it do with Piers Morgan now?
As the excesses of Britain’s tabloids came to light in the US media, CNN replied to enquiries that “Piers Morgan has been firm and specific in his denial, and we continue to be supportive of his programme.”
Morgan himself flatly denied any involvement: “I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone.”
From Los Angeles Times, CNN’s Piers Morgan says he never authorized phone hacking:
The inquiry was launched in response to admissions of phone hacking done by News of the World tabloid. The paper, which was closed because of the scandal, hacked into the voicemails of not only celebrities and members of the royal family, but also crime victims. News Corp. has made several settlements with victims including the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, whose phone was hacked by News of the World. On Tuesday, News Corp. settled seven more claims against the media company.
Morgan also said he had never given permission to pay off police for information, which is also something News of the World has been accused of doing.
While Morgan was insistent that his record was clean, he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for celebrities who court the media when it suits them but then complain when it doesn’t.
“How much privacy are you entitled to if you yourself use your privacy for commercial gain?” Morgan said. “I have very little sympathy with celebrities who sell their weddings for a million pounds … and then expect to have privacy if they get caught having affairs, for example, it seems to me a nonsensical position to adopt.”
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