To Roost.

In a recently unearthed 2009 interview, CNN host Piers Morgan appears to acknowledge to a BBC radio host that he ran stories based on phone hacking while he was a tabloid editor in Britain.

Morgan edited Rupert Murdoch's News of the World from 1994-1995, before jumping to Murdoch's main tabloid rival, the Daily Mirror, in 1995. He edited the Mirror until 2004, when he was forced out over a faked photo scandal involving the British military.

Morgan's appearance on the venerable BBC radio program "Desert Island Discs" was dusted off by the Daily Telegraph, which uploaded a portion of it to the Internet. The Daily Beast later ran a version of the same audio. In the Telegraph's clip, host Kirsty Young asks Morgan how it felt to "dealing with, I mean essentially people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people's phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff."

"Not a lot of that went on," Morgan replies. "A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That's not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work. I'm quite happy to be parked in the corner of tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to, and I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do."

To Roost.

In a recently unearthed 2009 interview, CNN host Piers Morgan appears to acknowledge to a BBC radio host that he ran stories based on phone hacking while he was a tabloid editor in Britain.

Morgan edited Rupert Murdoch's News of the World from 1994-1995, before jumping to Murdoch's main tabloid rival, the Daily Mirror, in 1995. He edited the Mirror until 2004, when he was forced out over a faked photo scandal involving the British military.

Morgan's appearance on the venerable BBC radio program "Desert Island Discs" was dusted off by the Daily Telegraph, which uploaded a portion of it to the Internet. The Daily Beast later ran a version of the same audio. In the Telegraph's clip, host Kirsty Young asks Morgan how it felt to "dealing with, I mean essentially people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people's phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff."

"Not a lot of that went on," Morgan replies. "A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That's not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work. I'm quite happy to be parked in the corner of tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to, and I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do."

LAW AND ORDER

N.Y. Woman Framed for Robberies
Queens, N.Y., resident Seemona Sumasar, an unassuming Wall Street analyst, was facing 25 years in prison for a series of armed robberies when cops finally admitted that she was innocent—and that she had been set up by a vengeful ex-boyfriend. Sumasar’s ex, Jerry Ramrattan, was a CSI and Law & Order fanatic who was furious that Sumasar had him arrested on rape charges and used his TV knowledge to carefully orchestrate the ploy, bribing people to report bogus robberies. His ex-girlfriend is free now, but she is suing the police who put her away. “I can never have faith in justice in this country again,” Sumasar says.


Read it at The New York Times
July 26, 2011 12:13 PM