Hacked and Attacked: How Piers Morgan's Fabricated Story Almost Ruined This Reporter
I learned about the creepy antics of this one-man TV-host crime spree
the hard way: as a victim of his crime-and-slime form of "journalism."
On September 29, 1998, Piers Morgan's Mirror ran a screaming full-page
headline: SEX SCANDAL ROCKS LABOUR CONFERENCE. His paper had caught a
rival paper's reporter who'd broken into the hotel room of a comely,
young, rising star of the Labour Party. The reporter was caught there
half undressed.
And the story was a complete load of crap. But Morgan, "editor" of the
Mirror, ran the report on Page One, and pages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 - even
though he knew it was fabricated. He knew because he had fabricated it.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's press chief personally thanked Morgan for running the bogus story. This was not the first time Pirate Morgan had worked me over. Months
earlier, on Page One again, he ran a full-page photo of me (one that
made me look bald!) under the words THE LIAR in letters bigger than the
Mirror's headline, Hitler Defeated.
O.K., I'm bald. But I am not a liar. I was in that hotel room to get a
story, not get the young lady's panties. But I did not break in. That's
what Morgan would do. A sworn affidavit by the hotel clerk said the
female in question had left me a key with instructions to meet her in
her room.
In other words, I was set up like a bowling pin.
As an investigator, it is quite embarrassing to have fallen so easily
into a honey trap, but the honey was quite something: I was lusting
after information about her mentor, the man known in England as The
Prince of Darkness, Peter Mandelson, or I should say, the Right
Honorable Lord Mandelson.
I'd already busted open a story about how Mandelson, Blair's claw,
Blair's Karl Rove, had aided a "cash-for-access" scheme by his lobbyist
cronies. He helped fiddle a bid for a contract to run Britain's National
Lottery to give the deal to the guys who ran the Texas Lottery. (If you
smell George Bush's connection, you'd be right.)
The story I wrote for The Observer (The Guardian's Sunday paper),
"Lobbygate: Cash For Access" won my co-writer Antony Barnett and I the
British equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize - and nearly won me time in a
lock-up: The Daily Mirror encouraged Mandelson's gal to file charges
against me with the constabulary for breaking into her room - though
they knew she left me the key.
(Private Eye, the Onion of Britain, ran a response - a photo of me
under the headline, IS THIS THE MOST EVIL MAN IN THE WORLD? by "Piers
Moron.")
This is not just fun and games. Piers' phony file on me was used by
Reliant Corporation of Houston to attempt to discredit my investigative
reports on their frighteningly dangerous operation of nuclear plants. (A
judge in Holland threw the book at them.)
Maybe you don't care, but you should. Reliant is the company, under a
new corporate alias, which has just been approved to receive the first
multi-billion-dollar loan guarantee from the Obama administration to
build a new nuclear plant. (Reliant's partner, by the way, is Tokyo
Electric Power.)
Obviously, there's a hell of a lot more to this story. I could write a
book - and I am. I've decided that, in the public interest, I will add a
chapter to the book about Pus Moron, the nuclear hucksters of Houston
and why it was that I was half undressed. (There really is an innocent,
or nearly innocent, explanation, I promise you.)
Of course, by the time my book comes out in November, Piers may no
longer be prancing about on CNN, but breaking rocks on a chain gang.
However, CNN is reported as concluding that Morgan's fibs and
fabrications - this is Morgan's third run-in with the law - would have
"no effect" on his hosting on their network. This only confirms my
experience with US television executives that when they need a new
on-air journalist, they just wait for a toilet to overflow.
Greg Palast's investigative reports for BBC "Newsnight" can be seen at www.GregPalast.com.
Sign-up there for information on Palast's forthcoming book, "Vultures'
Picnic." Have information regarding Morgan, Mandelson or Reliant
Corporation and its nuclear operations? Please go to www.GregPalast.com, click on "contact Greg."
Palast wishes to congratulate his colleagues at Newsnight and
especially investigative producer extraordinaire Meirion Jones for
ripping the media shield off Morgan. We look forward to Part 2. :)
Greg Palast directed the fraud investigation of BP and Exxon in the
grounding of the Exxon Valdez for the Chugach Natives of Alaska.
Palast's investigative reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight.
See them at
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