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Wednesday 19 July 2017

Piers Morgan Embargo Stunt FAILS

Despite the frequent lapses of our free and fearless press, British journalism still manages to uphold some standards of decency, so when the BBC released details of the kinds of salaries it paid its top talent, and clearly marked the pages as embargoed until 1100 hours today, most observed that caution. But there had to be one self-promotion expert wanting to make the whole exercise about Himself Personally Now.
And don't forget who he's backed to the hilt

And to no surprise at all, that self-promotion expert was former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, no longer a CNN host, but now three mornings a week co-presenter of ITV’s Good Morning Britain, who took time out from telling his adoring public how wonderful he was to break the embargo, and thereby earn an industrial-size raspberry from those journalists who can still understand words like “professionalism”.
Morgan, no stranger to talking without listening, decided to break the embargo - by less than an hour - and then call it a scoop. He then proceeded to patronisingly lecture anyone passing adverse comment upon his idiocy. So when Janine Gibson of BuzzFeed pointed out his lack of principle, he sneered “I understand the word 'scoop' better”. Ian Prior of the Guardian got “Aww...somebody got scooped and is feeling very, VERY angry”.
The “scoop” was worth next to nothing - except to fuel the ego of another of those Clever People Who Talk Loudly In Restaurants. Still, onwards and, er, onwards, eh? For Beth Rigby of Sky News, he added cheap sexism: “Oh settle down, petal. I just scooped you. Be better next time”. Kaya Burgess of the Times objected, little good that it did him or Ms Rigby: “What's sexist about the word ‘petal’?" The problem in one.
Meanwhile, there was an opportunity to double down on his sneer at Ms Rigby: “Why don't you stop whining & start reporting?” This manages to miss that Ms Rigby was doing the genuine reporting, rather than being a self-promoting opportunist who then patronised Sky News producer Nina Saada. She concluded Morgan was a misogynist, which prompted The Great Man to crack a joke: “Flowers are gender-fluid. Relax”.
Laugh? I thought I’d never start. Still there was more patronising, especially when Alastair Stewart at ITN opined “Breaking an embargo, with stuff we've all been sitting on for hours, is not a 'scoop', it is naff, delusional & unprofessional”. “You snooze, you lose mate” was the hugely unfunny response, followed by “I'd like to apologise to all fellow journalists I scooped on BBC salary story. I can't help being this good at my job, unfortunately”.
After that came the faux bragging, pretending he was earning rather more than he actually is: “I'm also truly shocked at the size of these BBC salaries. They get out of bed for THAT?” But Morgan had by now inflated his self-promotion soufflĂ© well behind the limits of its viability, and all that was needed was Natasha Loder of the Economist to fire back “How much would we have to pay for you to stay in bed? #askingforafriend”.

Piers Morgan might think he’s been incredibly clever. And, as he doesn’t front GMB on Thursdays, he won’t have to face his co-presenters or production team tomorrow morning. But for a large number of more serious journalists, his reputation just jumped from gutter to sewer. He’d better hope ITV bosses still think he’s worth the aggro.

7 comments:

A.Robot (Mrs) said...

Why anyone would join in this infantile playground crap is beyond me. For god's sake, leave the little twat to play with himself in his sandpit.

Mahesh said...

Isn't an embargo just a "Gentleman's" promise not to reveal certain things before a certain time? Why do thse people get pissed of cos Morgan revealed it an hour or so before? More importantly what can they do about it? Not like Piers is going to stop because of the abuse he's going to get, he gets that already and plenty of it :)

Anonymous said...

Maybe future press releases should be buried somewhere in a muddy field?

Anonymous said...

If only Piers himself was the subject of an embargo...
Or, possibly even a Superinjunction!

LiamKav said...

I would imagine the point is that it allows everyone to get their stories done in advance, check them for facts, and them simultaneously publish them. If the BBC showed journalists the report and said "go for it", it would have been a race to get the information out as fast as possible, with less fact checking and scrutiny, in order to get the precious clicks.

Now next time other agencies are going to worry about getting beaten to the punch and might do it themselves. And thus the standard of journalism drops just a little bit.

Morgan didn't DO anything to deserve a scoop. He just ignored what everyone had agreed to do. It's like seeing a queue as the bar and just pushing past everyone in order to get served first. Whether you think doing that makes you clever or simply a dick shows how much in common you have with Morgan/sociopaths.

Anonymous said...

He's crossed a line and become fair game for the rest of the pack. Could be fun.

Anonymous said...

How does Piers get paid?

Advertisers, is it?

Oooh, the embarrassment.

You'll never get real honesty in journalism with regards to business and corruption.
Many of them advertise with media.Media wouldn't rock that boat too much.

No wonder things are a mess. We don't need to look too far to lay blame.