Hacking hotseat
for CNN's Piers Morgan
Brits call for the TV host to return to London to answer questions
By Bill Cromwell
Aug 5, 2011
CNN host Piers Morgan long ago left the world of British tabloid journalism, but it's proving increasingly difficult for him to shake off that past.
Yesterday several British lawmakers called on Morgan, the former editor of the News of the World and the Daily Mirror, to testify before Parliament about his alleged involvement in or knowledge of phone hacking during his years at the tabloids.
Morgan has persistently denied any knowledge of phone hacking, but there is mounting evidence that hacking did take place during his watch at the Mirror and that he was aware of it.
Earlier this week Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, said a Mirror employee admitted to hacking her phone, and yesterday McCartney himself said it seemed he had been the victim of a phone hack. Mills said Morgan, at the time the Mirror's editor, had to have known about the hacking.
This prompted Morgan to once again issue a statement denying any phone hacking on his part or any knowledge of the practice during his tenure as editor of the Mirror, which ended in 2003 when he was fired in a flap over a doctored photo the paper published.
Yet Morgan in the past has admitted once overhearing a voicemail left by McCartney for Mills, according to the BBC. It reports that Morgan wrote an article in 2006 in which he recalled listening to a recording of a message left by McCartney for Mills on her cell phone. That message was left in 2001 when the two were dating.
So far, the widening phone hacking scandal has led to a dozen arrests and calls for major reforms in how the UK's press gathers news. It began several weeks ago after News Corp. admitted to extensive hacking at the NOTW and shut the paper down.
Since then News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, his son James and former head of News International Rebekah Brooks, among others, have testified before a House of Commons committee heading the investigation.
If Morgan, who hosts a CNN primetime show and judges "America's Got Talent," testifies it will have to be of his own behest. The chairman of the committee has said he does not have the power to compel a witness in another country to come give testimony.
CNN has stood firmly and unequivocally behind Morgan so far, but the question becomes how long will it continue to do so if more evidence comes out against the man who took over Larry King's slot in January.
Morgan's interview show has not produced great ratings, and while dumping him would be an embarrassment to the network, after fellow primetime host Eliot Spitzer was given the heave-ho, it probably would not hurt CNN in the longer term.
|
|
|
