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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 .1 He has also pursued careers in writing and television. 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.2 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 3. 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 . |
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