Piers Morgan is taking flak from all sides, from politicians to bloggers, newspapers and magazines. So what went wrong for the CNN host?
This past week the News Corp scandal fizzled down, only to be revived by allegations that Piers Morgan knew that hackings took place at the Daily Mirror while he was editor. British Blogger Paul Staines (Code name Guido Fawkes) unearthed a 2009 BBC interview in which Morgan admits that "third parties" were involved in hacking. However the CNN host has strongly denied he has ever hacked a phone or been aware of it during his time as editor.
On top of Staines' relentless assaults and promises to bring more dirt to light, Piers Morgan faced politician Louise Mensch, who claimed he had admitted to hacking phones in his 2005 book memoir 'The Insider'. Piers again deflected criticism and launched a twitter assault against her accusing her of lying, and using criminals as witnesses.
Since his twitter tirades, everyone from Sky News to the New York Times has analysed every conversation he has had about the nature of the hacking and added more shreds of evidence, essentially twisting the facts. However the pressure of the allegations were not controversial enough to silence the host. He decided to shift gears and bash Amy Winehouse's record label, and accuse them of not doing enough for her while she was alive.
Piers Morgan:
“Where were all the people making money out of her when it mattered?… Really, where were they? You know, it’s just not good enough and they’re all going to make millions out of it now she’s dead."
You could say Piers was having a bad week and needed to let off some steam, but in all fairness I think most of what is being said is to try to keep the buzz around the News Corp scandal going. Whether Piers Morgan knew hacking took place or not is up to him to reveal but what I do know is that papers need controversy to keep readers coming back. Now that proceedings are underway at News Corp, the web spin has begun to look for new scandals. This is just another week of entertainment fluff for CNN's primetime host, but don't expect this to die down soon. Everyone is looking to make a name for themselves by taking him on, but in the end of the day, it's him who is clearly winning the publicity battle.