Bloggers have taken centre stage in the continuing assault on the man from the Mirror. So can we count count on them on to set new high standards for the future?
That put the show - now known as PMT - just behind MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (356,000), but well behind Fox’s Sean Hannity (531,000). Overall, PMT had the biggest ratings of the night on CNN, beating Anderson Cooper’s AC 360.
That doesn't stop the website The Slog reporting from faraway England, "Tempers have been wearing thin in the top CNN echelons. Jon Klein, the man who championed Morgan’s hiring, is no longer there. Several of those who didn’t are less than happy to find that the British Larry King ‘replacement’ is not quite the harmlessly cheeky tabloid journalist they were sold six months ago." How could they think that, for heavens sake! They read his books,
as the Drum reported . “The focus groups are equivocal about Morgan” the Slog quotes one unnnamed US media insider, “and traditional CNN fans aren’t happy to be fed a diet of celebrity life episodes. Piers Morgan is not widely seen as a success in CNN. In some parts of the building, he’s seen as an accident waiting to happen”. Love to know who was saying all this stuff! Here's another bit : "It’s also just beginning to dawn on some top movers in CNN that the UK Leveson inquiry will put Morgan on the front pages for all the wrong reasons. “I spoke to [a CNN executive] at the weekend,” says another supposedly well-placed source, “and he kept saying that Morgan ‘seems to have one helluva lot of enemies’. But he was happy to be supportive as long as things don’t get any worse.” The Slog says the prevailing view now among US media opinion leaders is that , “Piers just isn’t successful enough to survive this kind of stuff. Frankly, he isn’t worth that much to CNN”. The Slog describers itself as " the successor to the long-running website Not Born Yesterday. Both were founded by John Ward, who sees himself primarily as a deconstructor of bollocks." Love that phrase!
"The Slog is a site for free thinkers who believe in individual independence, personal privacy, and consideration of the community’s needs." A big, part of the community's needs is a free and responsible press. The News of the World has done untold damage to the mainstream media but the new breed of bloggers have their own cross to bear. After all it was another blogger whose work led MP Louise Mensch into that embarrassing apology to none other than Piers Morgan. (more of THAT later!)
