Piers Morgan (5 page)

However, it was not just politicians and clergymen who featured in the
News Of The World
– just about any celebrity caught out doing what they shouldn't have been doing did so, too. But Piers was prepared to mount a strong defence. ‘It is a different agenda with pop stars,' he acknowledged, ‘they court newspaper publicity to sell their records, so they have to accept the bad publicity as well. You may think that's a pretty spurious argument. In
actual fact, I've had pop stars' representatives begging me to run their sex scandals.'

Despite all this success, his hard work was beginning to take its toll, too. Piers' marriage was to stagger on for many years to come, but now, with his eldest son Spencer still just one, he and Marion embarked on a separation. Piers himself was remarkably unforthcoming on what lay behind the move and steadfastly refused to answer questions (ironic, as he himself conceded, for an editor of the
News Of The World
) and, indeed, the two were to eventually reunite. But it was the first sign that his marriage would not stay the course: pressure of work, marrying too young… it was all to add up.

But Piers was doing so well professionally that nothing else seemed to matter. He was also well aware of the person to whom he owed everything – Kelvin MacKenzie. Indeed, he was quite fulsome in his praise, describing him as ‘inspirational' and ‘incredible'.

‘There are people in key positions around the world who are there because of him,' he proudly declared. ‘If that's the only thing he's remembered for, then that's still a hell of an achievement.'

And he drew a lot from his old mentor in terms of management style (not least frowning on all-day drinking), but, while Kelvin could be a terrifying boss, roaring with rage at his hapless lieutenants, Piers was – if not gentle as such – a little easier to deal with. ‘I wouldn't say anyone here is terrified of me,' he mused. ‘People here enjoy coming to work, but they know that I expect a certain
standard and I won't tolerate mistakes. I don't like going out for lunch and things like that. I want to be visible so that, when someone wants a decision taken, I can make it rather than have them wait for me to come back from a freebie lunch. I'm full of respect for the staff here; they took me on as a rookie and helped me learn my trade.'

Of course, one of the reasons why he wanted to maintain a constant presence in the office and was always careful to praise his reporters was because he was still so very young. Despite a hugely successful first year in the job, there were still doubters in the industry, to say nothing of his own staff; many had actually been passed over in favour of him and so they might be forgiven for feeling cautious. It simply made good sense to keep them on side.

‘I suppose the age thing was a problem,' Piers admitted to
Business Age
on the anniversary of his starting out in the job. ‘There are a lot of older people here but journalism is the one profession where age has never mattered. Whether you're seventeen or seventy-five, as long as you know what you're doing, you get respect. I had to gain respect very quickly, and the only way to do that was to produce great stories. I guess I was lucky because we got those stories, thanks to people who've been here longer than me.'

It was altogether a different tone to the one he had set at ‘Bizarre', where it had been all about him: now it was all about the paper. Piers had lost none of his knack for
self-publicity
(indeed, he never would), but he knew that he needed to present an entirely different persona. In short, he had to grow up – and fast.

‘The days of the rampant ego maniac are over,' he declared. ‘The nation can breathe again. The staff here were as amazed as I was that I got the job. They'd already had three acting editors in three months, so it was a case of, “Oh, here's another one. When's it all going to stop?” They didn't know me from Adam except that I wrote a column on the
Sun,
which was hardly the normal route to editorship. I wasn't going to come in here and throw my weight around. I said to them, “If you give me your support, I'll do my best for you.” I never regretted anything I did on the
Sun.
If people want to remember me for writing a book about Take That or being gunged on the Noel Edmonds' show, that's fine. I had great fun in those days, but the bottom line is I don't miss it.'

Among other things, he was showing a talent to reinvent himself and that was standing him in good stead; he would have to do something similar about a decade later when he lost his job as editor of the
Mirror
in spectacular style, but for now he was displaying a crucial ability to change roles, learn fast, up the odds and still come out winning. And he wasn't just the youngest editor on Fleet Street either, he was also the most-talked about and was producing some of the best stories, too. But he couldn't afford to mess up, even now; some of those stories had been highly controversial and, although he was setting the agenda, along the way he constantly had to defend himself and he was certainly able to do that.

‘I fully understand that I'm in a powerful position but my motivation is not to slip up,' he explained. ‘It's easy to
get carried away in this job and make mistakes that will haunt you for the rest of your career. The main concern I have is that I don't drop a spectacular clanger and we get a big libel case. You're talking about huge sums of money awarded arbitrarily by a jury under this strange libel system we live in, but we have to live by it. A simple error can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. What I'm saying is that every single thing that appears in the
News Of The World
is my responsibility. The buck stops here and I have to live or die by what we print. If I'm still sitting here in three years' time, I'll be very pleased.'

As it happened, he would be even more delighted at where he was to end up.

Piers had only been in the job for just over a year when he received one of the biggest accolades that his industry could bestow. The now-defunct BBC television programme
What The Papers Say
held annual awards, including one for Scoop Of The Year. At the beginning of 1995, this was extended to Scoops Of The Year because the
News Of The World
had achieved so many of them.

‘One of the worst things that can happen to someone who has been getting away with something is for someone to tell the
News Of The World,
' said Russell Davies, who was hosting the event. ‘Indeed, its track record has been breathtaking. For those who miss the
News Of The World,
it is responsible for what most of Britain is talking about on Monday morning. During the course of 1994, the
News Of The World
consistently produced front-page stories which set the agenda for the week and left other
papers trying to catch up. It was essential reading for millions of people.'

As editor, Piers collected the award but, as usual, he was careful to praise journalists working on the paper. ‘I'm delighted the consistently brilliant investigative work of journalists on the
News Of The World
has earned them this award,' was how he put it. However, he was the one at the helm, steering the ship, taking risks, and no one was in any doubt that this was very much his award, too.

The next big scandal to hit the decks was actually courtesy of the
Sunday Mirror,
but, given that Piers himself had been behind so many recent sensations, he was forced to defend this one on a matter of principle. It concerned Rupert Pennant-Rea, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. Already a much-married man (he was with his third wife by the time the scandal broke), he had been having an affair with journalist Mary Ellen Synon but eventually called it off after four years in 1994. Incandescent with rage, Mary Ellen (who apparently harboured marital ambitions) told her former lover that she would expose him and so she did, although to extend the tension she took a year to go about it. When the story eventually broke, it was packed full of lurid details about lovemaking in the depths of the hallowed Bank and, shortly after it was published, Pennant-Rea resigned from his post. Unusually, Mary Ellen had not been paid for her story but she certainly got the result she wanted.

Pennant-Rea then announced that he had been driven out of office because the press was intruding on his life,
a claim backed by the then Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. Questions were raised as to the morality of it all and this was not mere industry speculation; there were constant fears that a privacy law might be introduced, something that would certainly make any editor's job a good deal more difficult. Almost immediately, however, the press rose up to defend itself: usually at one another's throats, this time they spoke as one.

Piers, as might be expected, was one of the most prominent voices. ‘It is absolutely ridiculous for the Chancellor and Mr Pennant-Rea to condemn the tabloids,' he declared. ‘He only went after the
Financial Times
cleared half a page for the story. My information is he decided to go because he had been exposed to ridicule in the
FT.
It was a story about a man whose judgement is at the essence of our everyday life. When he took his mistress into the office of [Governor of the Bank of England] Eddie George and bonked her on the desk, he invited his own resignation. I'm amazed he hung on so long. It is the usual effort by the Establishment to turn attention on the tabloids, which had very little to do with it.'

In fact, Britain's libel laws are far more draconian than they are in other countries and, in the mid-1990s, there were real concerns that a privacy law might be brought in. Although much of the drama surrounding the royal family was created – and leaked to the press – by the principal members themselves, the public was not so aware of it as they are today. Often journalistic intrusion in those days was condemned by those who didn't realise the press was
being used in the ‘War of the Waleses'. On the other hand, a dying and weak Conservative Government was filled with politicians with a vested interest in keeping their private lives out of the public eye.

When the then Prime Minister John Major announced it was ‘Back to Basics' (in the full knowledge that his own affair with former Conservative minister Edwina Currie could come out at any time) and his ‘Minister for Fun' David Mellor announced the press was drinking in the ‘Last Chance Saloon', it was open season on anyone with anything to hide. At the same time, the charge was also levelled that newspapers, tabloids in particular, had too much power and should not be allowed to hound people out of office. Altogether, it was an uneasy time.

Stories such as Pennant-Rea's were a case in point: was there really any public interest in exposing his affair (although it should be noted that it was his erstwhile mistress who shopped him, not some snooping tabloid hack) and should he be forced to step down? In truth, he had become a figure of fun and so his fate was almost certainly unavoidable, but it was a real concern for editors of the day.

In March 1995, Piers turned thirty and was still the youngest editor at the table. The scoops continued to roll in: the latest to feature was the Conservative MP Richard Spring, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Spring, it emerged, had enjoyed a ‘three-in-a-bed sex romp' with a Sunday school teacher and another male
friend. It made the front page of the
News Of The World,
and afterwards Spring duly resigned, which again raised eyebrows. After all, he was divorced, on top of which Odette Nightingale – the teacher in question – attended the ‘sex romp' with a tape recorder in tow. ‘Entrapment is an ugly word,' thundered some sections of the media, leaping to the high moral ground and, indeed, in this case, it did look as if the paper might have gone too far.

‘That anyone is entitled to privacy in their homes, in their cups or in their beds is a concept wholly alien to the
News Of The World,
' boomed Lord Wyatt of Weeford in
The Times.
‘The
News Of The World
has as good as asked for a privacy law. The Government and Opposition should no longer hesitate to produce it.'

The attack was a little odd, coming as it did not only from a fellow journalist but also one with a column on the
News Of The World,
writing under the moniker ‘The Voice Of Reason'.

Another former
News Of The World
reporter who didn't wish to be named (it wasn't a good idea to fall foul of Rupert Murdoch) was equally scathing. ‘Patsy [the former editor] would never have run the story on Spring,' he declared. ‘Where's the justification? He's a single man, who's been set up in his own home by a woman who's getting a lot of money from the paper. I'm not saying we never put tape recorders under beds but they were a precaution in case we were sued. We've now got inexperienced journalists and an inexperienced editor leading us straight to a privacy law.'

Ultimately, it didn't prove to be the case and, besides, such criticism was more often than not a case of sour grapes. Piers, as was so frequently pointed out, was young – younger than many of his staff and younger than most of Fleet Street – and yet he had already risen to a powerful position. This was bound to engender envy, and any mistakes (and in retrospect this might apply to the Spring story) were bound to be leapt on.

And then there was another aspect to the whole thing: the fact that broadsheets liked to denounce the antics of the tabloids while slavering over the details themselves. ‘What we are seeing yet again is double-edged hypocrisy, all the broadsheets splashing on our story on Monday and filling their boots with the salacious details they so condemn,' snapped Piers. ‘And then saying how awful it was we ran the story in the first place but giving it wider currency, all the same.'

So who was right? Over a decade and a half later, there is still no privacy law in Britain – and Piers Morgan has certainly become one of the country's best-known names.