His brother is a Major in the army and fought in Iraq which provides a stark contrast to Morgan's own views about the illegality of the war. There is a little insight into his private life, but only to the extent that I gathered it wasn't a great success. He's willing to spell out where his judgement was wrong and even where his behaviour was just plain crass. I never was." Morgan says early in the book that he will admit his mistakes as well as singing his own praises. Most books of this type are written along the lines of "I was right and they were all wrong. I had more liking for Piers Morgan than I started with. I thought less of him and much less of Blair after reading this book. What did disappoint me was to realise that in Alastair Campbell the Prime Minister was, for many years, represented by a foul-mouthed yob. It's disheartening, though, to see it spelled out in print and to realise that they make a good living despite, or sometimes because of their lifestyle. I've always thought that some people became celebrities not because they are better than the rest of us, but because they are generally prepared to behave more outrageously, so the stories about the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Jordan and Paul Gascoigne came as no shock to me. Add to this the social obligations, which seemed to consist of eating in superior restaurants and getting drunk on a very regular basis and it's a job that's going to take its toll on the blood pressure and the liver. On top of the long hours there's the responsibility to the owner of the paper, the readers and, not least, to the people whom you're writing about. What did come through to me was what unremittingly hard work the job of editing a national paper really is. Interspersed are all those minor events which we soon forget about, such as the naked man who landed on the roof of Buckingham Palace, Hugh Grant caught with the prostitute Divine Brown and the trials and tribulations of Paula Yates. There's the election of the first Labour government for decades, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 9/11, Bush's war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. The events, though, are pretty exciting ones. So, the facts of what happened are probably reasonably correct, but the thoughts, the conclusions have almost certainly been coloured by subsequent events. When one box was full, another was started.
What he kept were boxes into which he piled anything which he thought might be interesting. You see, Piers Morgan didn't keep a diary. Unfortunately this is where my doubts about this book as an accurate recollection of events, rather than entertainment, surface. I enjoy this format because it gives you insight into what the author was thinking at the time rather than how he sees things with the benefit of hindsight. The book is written in the form of a diary which begins in the final days of 1993. So, how had Morgan got to the point where he'd edited two national papers before he was forty? There had recently been similar problems with American troops and the scoop was sensational - if it had been true. In a rather unlikely way the story begins with the end - in 2004 - when Morgan lost his job as editor of The Daily Mirror over the publishing of fake photographs of British troops abusing Iraqi civilians in Basra. Morgan was probably as surprised as anyone to get the job but it was the beginning of the eleven years which he spent editing first The News of the World and then The Mirror. He'd been working on The Sun where he dropped his double-barrelled surname and caught the eye of Rupert Murdoch. Still, the book was there and I thought I might as well have a look just to see how dreadful it was.Įr, I couldn't put it down and read it cover to cover in less than forty eight hours despite being rather busy at the time!Īt the age of 28 Piers Morgan was appointed editor of The News of the World. I don't like gossip (unless it's particularly juicy) and I'm not keen on giving money to people who make a good living out of selling it. I don't read tabloid newspapers and Piers Morgan has been editor of two of them.
I didn't buy this book and if it had been up to me it wouldn't have come into the house. It's mildly interesting but ultimately disheartening. There's nothing there that you couldn't have got by assiduously reading the tabloids and you won't feel good after reading it.
Summary: A gossipy trot through the eleven years that Morgan edited first The News of the World and then The Mirror.
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