The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

As Piers gets the boot at CNN, Colin Myler's gossip writers put the boot in at the Daily News

Author

By Noel Young, Correspondent

February 25, 2014 | 3 min read

Talk about getting the boot in! According to the New York Daily News, the CNN co-workers of former Mirror editor Piers Morgan are glad he’s getting the boot.

Piers: The bombastic Brit

Staffers at “Piers Morgan Live” are actually relieved that CNN has canceled the show, sources tell the News’s Confidenti@l column .

“He was always such an a------ to people working for him,” one insider says of Morgan, dubbing him " the bombastic Brit'. The irony of course is that former News of the World editor Colin Myler is now editor of the Daily News .And one Morgan's previous engagements was ..... at the News of the World as, at 29, the youngest-ever editor.

Piers Morgan’s last show is likely to be this week, but no specific date has been set. Confident@l hears it was "low ratings and a bad attitude that killed it," and the decision was made by network boss Jeff Zucker.

“The makeup girls suffered the worst — he was rude and belligerent,” says our source. “The general feeling is Morgan didn’t show any respect to anyone working under him — the people who were trying to make him look good.”

Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror from 1995 until he was fired in 2004 over the publication of pictures that were claimed to show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British soldiers; it turned out the photos were fakes.

On Slate David Weigel weighed in:”The critics couldn’t kill that (CNN) show. Viewers killed it. The live broadcast of Morgan’s show drew around half the viewers that MSNBC did, and a fifth as many as Fox News. "

Weigel adds, “In fact, Morgan’s humiliation was so total that he’s at risk of becoming a martyr for True Journalism. The New York Times scoop was fairly sympathetic to the host, asking how much of his unpopularity had to do with his British accent and values. Americans, said Morgan, remained skeptical “about this British guy telling them how to lead their lives and what they should do with their guns.” We were not.

Weigel says Morgan was the beneficiary of a curious American habit. “We assign 20 extra IQ points to anyone who speaks with a British accent, redistributing them from the people who speak with Southern accents. This was what led people, like Alec Baldwin, to assume that Martin Bashir “might help get MSNBC to a higher place,” and why every B-movie producer has assumed he could elevate the material by casting Malcolm McDowell or Ben Kingsley.

“ That way lies madness—that way liesThunderbirds and Piers Morgan Live.”

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +