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How do you solve a 'problem' like Piers Morgan?

Morgan likes to push the boundaries but that can be a problem for his employers
Morgan likes to push the boundaries but that can be a problem for his employers

Only Piers Morgan would storm off his own show. Yes, his departure was petulant. Perhaps even unprofessional. But it got everyone talking, polarised opinion and stimulated debate. This is what he does: a news provocateur. He divided America by loudly backing gun control, making himself part of the story. He was the loudest pro-lockdown voice over here. Whatever the issue is, Piers Morgan will take a position – something his viewers will do too. It’s all good clean fun: unless you’re regulated by Ofcom.

There’s a duty for television news to observe “due impartiality” which sounds innocent enough until you start to unpack the concept. Does it mean that television show hosts can never take a view on what they report? And if so, how should opinion be interpreted – or policed? In the new woke world, where minority opinions are increasingly seen as a menace to be expunged, this all gets tougher. Especially for Piers Morgan who, in his 30-year career, has never been impartial about anything. In that regard he’s a walking, talking Ofcom violation.

There were over 41,000 complaints to Ofcom about his verdict on Meghan Markle (the Duchess is reportedly among them): he’s not a great fan. He said he didn’t “believe a word” that she said. Was this real opinion or just a ruse to stimulate discussion? Or perhaps (as one of his colleagues suggested before he stormed off) sour grapes because she refused to become one of the celebrity friends he talks about? It’s anyone’s guess. Might he just as easily have been her biggest defender had he thought it mildly more entertaining to strike that pose? You’re never quite sure with him – but it doesn’t matter. What you can be sure about is that he’ll have a firm, probably outrageous view.

His six-year stint as a Good Morning Britain host was the latest of many journalistic incarnations. A former showbusiness reporter – one of the toughest gigs in journalism, despite its reputation – he became editor of the News of the World at 29. Then, aged 30, he edited the Daily Mirror where he ditched its famous red top and pledged to redefine the paper by never putting a trivial story on the front page. It was all-out against the Iraq war, but he was sacked after publishing what turned out to be a fake photograph of British troops abusing a prisoner. Any other journalist would have found their career ending there. Morgan’s had just begun.

His diaries were bestsellers and teed him up for a three-year career as an American television anchor. His newspaper columns were written in quiet moments, with a speed that would make Boris Johnson gawp. When he ended up hosting Good Morning Britain, he sought to reinvent that format as well. He’d hold forth while Susanna Reid perfected her taken-aback facial expression. Perhaps you could call that balance.

But there’s nothing balanced about his Twitter account, where seven million follow him for his cask-strength opinions on every subject imaginable. Twitter is a digital outrage factory, whose users are invited to pass (usually facetious) comment on what others say. Morgan has used it to create an image of an enfant terrible and in this way solicits opinions and reactions from people who may otherwise watch the news. But he also recruited a vast army of enemies – who were ready to cause a Twitterstorm against him. And did so quite regularly.

It’s unfair to say that Morgan doesn’t know where the limits are. He does know and enjoys testing those limits; he finds life more exciting on the wrong side of the tracks. When Markle claimed that she had experienced racism and been driven to have suicidal thoughts, he’ll have known that the expected response was to take what she said seriously. He rejected it immediately and contemptuously. “I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report,” he said.

Was he entitled to express that view – one that’s likely to be shared by a great many of his viewers? It seems that ITV thinks not. But as an organisation, it’s not really in the mood for a fight to defend him. It has emerged from its own controversies, be it the suicide of Love Island contestants or the use of unreliable lie detectors on Jeremy Kyle. To counter all of these cruel headlines. ITV recently ran a campaign called Britain Get Talking, encouraging people to open up about their mental health. Which, of course, Meghan did this week. Her biggest, most powerful and incendiary critic was the star of ITV’s morning show.

He could have survived Meghan-gate by offering a grovelling apology. But anyone who has followed his career would have trouble imagining Piers Morgan grovel. What’s more, if ITV is going to respond to pressure from protesters on Twitter, his demise would only be a matter of time.

I know several broadcasters who have come up against the “impartiality” rule and they point out that it only ever moves one way. When John Humphrys was at the BBC he made a brilliant documentary about welfare – asking why, in his Welsh hometown, so many were claiming benefits. For this, he was hauled up in front of a BBC star chamber and found guilty of infringing rules on accuracy and impartiality. His real sin was to go against a consensus that such difficult questions are avoided.

In my world, things risk going the same way. Editors know that to publish certain articles will mean you face an inquisition that will take up far more time and money than writing the article in the first place. Question the climate change consensus or the transgender lobby, for example, and you will need to get ready for battle. To question lockdown, now, is to invite a volley of vexatious complaints from activists via regulators – days can be spent dealing with them. It sends a menacing message: that certain difficult subjects are best avoided altogether.

IPSO, the press regulator, has become a target for activists to manipulate. They can lodge a complaint about impartiality – in the eye of the beholder – and the paper has to defend itself. Annoyed by Morgan? Complain to Ofcom; perhaps the sheer volume of complaints will force ITV to buckle. Kelvin MacKenzie survived a great many battles when he edited The Sun in the Eighties, but when a Twitterstorm emerged over one of his columns he had to walk the plank. Kevin Myers, a Sunday Times columnist, was smeared as an anti-Semite in a Twitterstorm and then dropped

Even left-leaning intellectuals like Ian Buruma are not immune from the mob: he had to resign as editor of the New York Review of Books after he published an article from someone acquitted of sexual harassment charges. He was aged 66 at the time and you can see how he was baffled: what was the problem? If people didn’t like his article, surely they’d turn the page? Since when was it a resigning offence to air an accurate, minority opinion? But the digital world moves quickly – as Morgan has just found out.

But then again: will this episode really have come as a shock to him? Or might we all be witnessing just the latest carefully-choreographed act in the Piers Morgan Show? His contract was anyway coming up for renewal – and Good Morning Britain’s viewership had never risen to the levels hoped for: critics say it was more talked-about than watched. Morgan may well have thought it might be quite amusing to go out with a bang. To excoriate Meghan, whip up a firestorm (no one does them better) and leave ITV to decide his fate.

“If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly-held opinion,” he said, “so be it.” And in a message for his critics he said: “I think it's fair to say, although the woke crowd will think that they've cancelled me, I think they will be rather disappointed when I re-emerge. I would call it a temporary hibernation.” He added that he is “always in talks with people”.

Quite the manifesto and the perfect segue into a new television career – perhaps for an ITV rival like Rupert Murdoch’s proposed TV channel or the soon-to-be launched GB News. So it’s wrong to say – as so many are doing – that Morgan has gone out as a martyr. Martyrs die. Morgan is now waiting for his next act.