Piers Morgan

Piers Stefan Pughe-"Morgan" Moron (born 30 March 1965 in Newick, East Sussex) is a former editor of British tabloid newspapers the News of the World (1994 – 1995) and the Daily Mirror (1995 – 2004). His career has also taken in books and factual television programmes, but he is best known in the United States as a judge on the NBC show America's Got Talent. In the UK he is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children, and also stars in the show Britain's Got Talent alongside Simon Cowell.

Early career

The youngest of four children, Piers Moron was supposedly named after brewery heir and privateer motor-racing driver Piers Courage. He attended Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, near Lewes, East Sussex. Morgan studied Journalism at Harlow College. After a brief career at Lloyds of London, he joined the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group, where he worked as a reporter on the South London Press. Morgan was recruited (he says headhunted by editor Kelvin MacKenzie) to join The Sun newspaper, specifically to work on the Bizarre column.

Career in newspapers

Morgan's first major position in national media was as editor of The Sun's show business column, Bizarre, under the editorship of Kelvin MacKenzie. In 1994, aged 28, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, becoming the youngest national newspaper editor for more than half a century. He quickly gained notoriety for his invasive style and lack of concern for celebrities' right to privacy, claiming that they could not manipulate the media to further their own ends without accepting the consequences of a two way deal.

Morgan left this post shortly after publishing photographs of Catherine Victoria Lockwood, then wife of Charles, 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. Murdoch was reported as having said publicly that "the boy went too far". Morgan's autobiography The Insider states that he left the News of the World of his own choice and somewhat against owner Rupert Murdoch's wishes when he was offered the job of Editor at the Daily Mirror.

As editor of the Daily Mirror, Morgan was widely criticised in 1996 for the 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 Suzy Jagger wrote a story in The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror's 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy. He was found to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism by the Press Complaints Commission, but Morgan kept his job. The view was expressed in "media" columns that Morgan had support in the boardroom, where his qualities as a successful editor were seen to outweigh any suggestions that he might be lacking in personal integrity. The City Slickers columnists Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed more breaches of the Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry resulted in the DTI saying that Morgan would not face charges. On 7 December, 2005 Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had in fact bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his wife's name too.

In 2002 the Daily Mirror attempted to move midmarket, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. Morgan rehired John Pilger, who had been sacked during Robert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite such changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation, a decline shared by its direct rivals The Sun and the Daily Star.

He was fired from the Daily Mirror on 14 May, 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of what transpired to be faked photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army personnel. The Daily Mirror countered that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for their publication.

Later, Morgan also had a monthly interview column in GQ magazine.

In May 2005, in partnership with Matthew Freud, he gained ownership of Press Gazette, a media trade publication together with its 'cash cow' the British Press Awards, in a deal worth £1 million. This ownership was cited as one of the reasons many major newspapers boycotted the 2006 awards. Press Gazette entered administrative receivership toward the end of 2006, before being sold to a trade buyer.

On 4 May, 2006, Morgan launched First News, a weekly paper aimed at nine- to twelve-year-olds. Morgan is editorial director at First News, responsible for bringing in celebrity involvement. He referred to the role as "editorial overlord and frontman"

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, about fame and the manner in which celebrities are covered by 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 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 February, 2006 that Morgan was 'in talks' with ITV to take over Paul O'Grady's chat show, following a successful pilot.

Throughout the summer of 2006, Morgan appeared as a judge on the American television show America's Got Talent along with Brandy and David Hasselhoff on NBC. Morgan recently appeared as a celebrity contestant on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice in 2007, to raise money for Comic Relief. During filming, he managed to reduce fellow contestant Trinny Woodall to tears when he stole her chef and was involved in a brawl with her. Upon his team losing, Morgan was the only celebrity to be fired by Alan Sugar. He is now set to return as a judge for the second season of America's Got Talent. Morgan also appears as a judge on British TV show Britain's Got Talent on ITV1 along with Amanda Holden and the show's producer Simon Cowell.

Personal

Morgan has been linked romantically to The Daily Telegraph gossip columnist Celia Walden.

Piers Morgan and Ian Hislop

File:Piers morgan hignfw.jpg

Morgan's appearance on Have I Got News For You

Morgan appeared as a guest on Have I Got News for You in 1996, and he and Ian Hislop failed to keep their mutual contempt off-screen. Hislop directly accused Morgan of having him (Hislop) followed and his house watched. The conflict escalated from there and at one point Angus Deayton asked if they wished to go outside and have a fight. In what was not Morgan's finest moment, approximately halfway through the show, when shown his question in the "Odd One Out round" (Rupert Allason; Sting; a koala; Geoffrey Clements) he responded, "Is the answer 'jam'?" in reference to a joke made by Eddie Izzard the previous week, saying, "Last week Eddie Izzard said it and everyone roared with laughter as if it was hilarious." Hislop retorted that Izzard got a laugh because "People like him". When Hislop successfully made the 'jam' joke later in the programme, Morgan replied, "Don't play the popularity line with me, Hislop", before appealing to the audience: "Does anyone actually like him?" The audience responded loudly in favour of Hislop, and Morgan appeared to be humiliated. By the end of the programme Morgan claimed Hislop would be "getting new neighbours", insinuating photographers would be sent by him. Piers' 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, has routinely referred 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 magazine had originally referred to him as Piers 'Boy' Morgan, based on Rupert Murdoch's reference to him as 'the boy' after his departure from the News of the World. During his time at the Mirror, Morgan frequently threatened to publish damaging stories about Hislop, and while they never appeared, Morgan has staged numerous petty attacks on Hislop such as gate-crashing a book signing with 'protestors' proclaiming 'Gnome Go Home'.

Private Eye has also mocked Morgan for his relationship with Marina Hyde, now a columnist on The Guardian, not least because both parties were at the time married to other people. Their involvement became known via leaked amorous emails while Hyde was working for The Sun and Morgan the Daily Mirror. A feature of the Private Eye treatment of this episode was to contrast its furtive nature with the manner in which Morgan regularly promoted his nuptials in the 'Bizarre' column when he was showbusiness editor of The Sun. Hyde subsequently returned to her husband.

Following the publication of Morgan's book The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade, the Eye published an article suggesting that, far from Morgan being an insider and this a "diary", he was a spectator and his book contained many glaring inaccuracies - for example, references to Morgan supposedly having visited Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street in the early part of 1997, when in fact John Major was still Prime Minister. From time to time the Eye returns to this theme, seldom missing an opportunity to criticise the book.

Jeremy Clarkson

Morgan also has a long-running public feud with Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear. In October 2003, on the last Concorde flight, Clarkson threw a glass of water over Morgan while the two were exchanging insults. In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, Clarkson cursed at Morgan and punched him three times leaving Morgan with a scar above his left eyebrow; apparently Clarkson was angry that the newspaper had published photographs of him with a woman who was not his wife. Recently Morgan and Clarkson appear to have resolved their differences according to Morgan's newspaper column.

Books

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Cover of Morgan's book The Insider

• Morgan, Piers (1991). Secret Lives. Blake. ISBN 0-905846-95-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Morgan, Piers (1991). Private Lives of the Stars. Angus and Robertson. ISBN 0-207-16941-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Morgan, Piers (1992). To Dream a Dream: Amazing Life of Phillip Schofield. Blake. ISBN 1-85782-006-1.
• Morgan, Piers (1993). "Take That": Our Story. Boxtree. ISBN 1-85283-839-6.
• Morgan, Piers (1994). "Take That": On the Road. Boxtree. ISBN 1-85283-396-3.
• Morgan, Piers (2004). Va Va Voom!: A Year with Arsenal 2003-04. Methuen. ISBN 0-413-77451-1.
• Morgan, Piers (2005). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Ebury Press. ISBN 0-09-190506-0 (hardback) ISBN 0-09-190849-3 (paperback).+
• Morgan, Piers (2007). Don't You Know Who I am?.

External links

• BBC profile