Skip to content or view screen version

Piers Morgan booted out of the Daily Mirror

Sn|per'al'jazeera | 14.05.2004 23:34 | World

UK editor fired over hoax abuse pictures
Friday 14 May 2004, 22:52 Makka Time, 19:52 GMT

Piers Morgan was one of Britain's youngest newspaper editors.

The editor of Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper has been forced out for publishing pictures claiming to show the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops that proved to be fake.

15/05/04

Piers Morgan was kicked out by the board of media group Trinity Mirror on Friday, which said it was "inappropriate" for him to continue as editor.

"There is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax," the paper said.

"The Daily Mirror therefore apologises unreservedly for publishing the pictures and deeply regrets the reputational damage done to the QLR (Queen's Lancashire Regiment) and the Army in Iraq," it said.

"The Board of Trinity Mirror has decided that it would be inappropriate for Piers Morgan to continue in his role as editor of the Daily Mirror and he will therefore be stepping down with immediate effect," added the newspaper.

The media group said it "published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner" and would now "continue to cooperate fully with the investigation". Deputy editor Des Kelly will assume the role of acting editor.

Moral victory

Morgan's departure from the Mirror, a vociferous opponent to the US-led war in Iraq, was seen as a moral victory for Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government, which argued in parliament this week that it did not believe the photos were genuine.

The Daily Mirror says it has been
'the subject of a hoax'.

The Daily Mirror's pictures first appeared on 1 May, just days
after the American television network CBS aired the first startling photos of US troops abusing and torturing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison.

One of the British pictures showed a soldier urinating on a hooded man on the floor, another purported to show the same man, also hooded, being threatened with a blow of a rifle butt to his groin.

In none of pictures can a soldier's face be seen - in contrast to the Abu Ghraib images, in which they were visible and identifiable.

Experts immediately questioned the photos, noting that the truck, assault rifle and floppy hat seen in them were not identical to those used by the 8000 British troops who occupy southern Iraq.

There were conflicting reports in London as to whether Morgan, one of Britain's youngest and most combative newspaper editors, was fired, or whether he bowed to pressure from his proprietors to resign.


Nicked from:  http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E1CC8E3E-7FD3-4BF4-90EA-97349D761D02.htm

Sn|per'al'jazeera

Comments

Hide the following 22 comments

Shite

15.05.2004 00:14

Piers Morgan is not a totally honourable man, but this is the last thing he should have taken a walk over
Fuck 'em Piers, your vision ought to be more sighted now you know how the fuckers set you up for a fall

dh


DAILY MIRROR EDITOR RESIGNS

15.05.2004 00:24

DAILY MIRROR EDITOR RESIGNS

May 14 2004

By Steve Purcell

The Editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, resigned tonight as the row over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops intensified.

The Daily Mirror has issued the following statement to the world's media:

The Daily Mirror published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner.

However there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax.

The Daily Mirror therefore apologises unreservedly for publishing the pictures and deeply regrets the reputational damage done to the QLR and the Army in Iraq.

The paper will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation.

The Board of Trinity Mirror has decided that it would be inappropriate for Piers Morgan to continue in his role as Editor of the Daily Mirror and he will therefore be stepping down with immediate effect.

Des Kelly, Deputy Editor, will assume the role of acting Editor.

Daily Wanka' oops sorry ' MIRROR '


oh the irony

15.05.2004 07:57

it's a repeat of the BBC

[hutton stooges]

Captain Wardrobe


What about the doggy dossier?

15.05.2004 15:16

So if he has to walk the plank, how come the government and MI6 aren't also forced out due to their publishing of now discredited intelligence information? One standard for mere mortals, one standard for the government eh?

Krop


Bollocks to him

15.05.2004 15:20

Thats the same Piers Morgon who used to be editor of THE SUN and was responsible for endless lies about the miners to name but one example. The controversy over the fake pictures has also produced a convenient smokescreen to steer the media away from the facts, like the ammount of deaths in British custody for example. Morgon will be ok,the ruling class always looks after it's own.

Guido


Mirror editor does... WHAT?

15.05.2004 17:21

Morgan resigned???

After he was fired, he was marched from the building by security guards and told not to attempt to re-enter the premises.

newsdesk


How it works

15.05.2004 21:42

Two operatives from military intelligence go to the Mirror with creditable army ID, plenty of insider information, and a set of photos which are crystal clear b&w, in hindsight said to resemble MI's photographic modus operandi, and which back up the flow of news of brutal treatment of Iraqi captives by British troops
Whatever the faults of Morgan, the Mirror's praiseworthy anti-war stance meant he had to be worked over
With all his egotism and desire for scoops, he was an easy target for just such a 'sting'
Let's hope Piers has now an insight into the true workings of this abysmal state of affairs, and not be too harsh in our criticism of past performance
He appears to be at present another victim
And have you not scene the sickeningly patronising TV news bulletins?

dh


"He appears to be at present another victim"

15.05.2004 23:18

Hahahhahaha...

erm... oh, you're serious?

a) Viglen share tipping scandal - Morgan made tens of thousands ramping shares tipped in the Mirror
b) His brother is a serving member of HM armed forces in Basra (aka a human rights abusing occupier fascist)
c) He earned over £1m last year through various packages while his employees faced a pension fund deficit of £120m ( http://money.guardian.co.uk/pensionsincrisis/story/0,12199,812187,00.html)
d) His #1 hero is Rupert Murdoch, the neo-con guru
e) He worked on the Sun at the time the Sun were savaging striking miners and accusing those who lost family at Hillsborough of urinating on the dead and looting corpses.

Apart from that... such a nice guy. A true working class hero.

fuck morgan


This shit doen'i matter

15.05.2004 23:30

I never sought to square up Morgan against the establishment
Like the satanic (literally!) Bush/Blair duo he may have been destined for the chop
In simplistic terms, due to his promo, getting a sizeable portion of the ignorant UK population turned against the invasion, he had to go down
Whatever delusional hinterland that exists in, I don't know
In the front charade he needed to be terminated. Stop.

dh


come on dh...

15.05.2004 23:48

'getting a sizeable portion of the ignorant UK population turned against the invasion'

BS - the sizeable portion of the population against the invasion wasn't inspired by the Mirror. Morgan saw an opportunity to boost sales and exploited it. If the Sun had been anti-war he the Mirror front page would have been 'Achtung Surrender' in Arabic.

fuck morgan


I think the sales went down

16.05.2004 00:10

Nothing you can say will deflect my view that this an open and evident ploy on behalf of the NWO
We apologise
For fuck's sake
Ihere's mothing to apologise for except that we accept this heinous worldwide atrocity

dh


thanks

16.05.2004 10:02

for the info on Peirs Morgan

that shit does matter

Greg Dyke and Gavin Davies,
New Labour donors remember,
who I suspect were complicit in the
huge operation of the Hutton report...
the deals were all done in the masonic lodge...
and the 'fall out' of the Hutton report'
meant the BBC has to have a
'really good look at itself'
and will never tell a lie again!!!!
{oh really?}

They picked Andrew Gilligan to be the stooge
and also killed Dr Kelly ...



Peir Morgan is now complicit in re-branding
a 'working class tabloid
as a truth-telling vessel!!!

He takes the fall...

killing Nick berg to distract
from US UK operation...

IE:in Najaf

they are slaughtering people in one
of the holiest sites
in the islamic world


just like the BBC! they are both corporatist dis-info channelers
who the public beleive have gone through a process of
transformation...how orwellian is this shit?

Captain Wardrobe


they don't like it up 'em...

16.05.2004 10:35

"The Washington Times is a hysterically right wing paper owned by... the Moonies! - the same lunatic so-called religious sect that American parents were terrified of only a few years ago when it was brainwashing teenage kids. Now it is telling all Americans what to think and they already agree whole-heartedly. Few Americans, of course, will accept that they are brain-washed even though many are too scared to say what they think. Great society? Economically perhaps, and even then with no sense of responsibility to the world as opposed to its own self-interest, but greatness has yet to find someone worthy among today's arcade-game rulers.

When US investment fund manager Tom Shrager of Tweedy Browne made a call to Trinity- Mirror's chief executive Philip Graf to complain about the Mirror articles, it raised a ghost the British did not know existed. The British have become used to brazen newspaper proprietors calling the editorial shots, from Lord Beaverbrook via Robert Maxwell to Lord Black, not to mention Rupert - "My papers will campaign against the euro" - Murdoch.

Investor power is a new one. Yet we should not overlook that almost a third of Trinity-Mirror's stock is in the hands of just three New York fund managers. Apart from er... Tweedy Browne's 4% stake, the mutual fund giant Fidelity owns 14% and the Capital group has 13%. If the key players in those companies all feel like Shrager, who's to know what they might do. Trinity-Mirror is certainly taking it seriously.

As one of their senior executives told Greenslade: "This is a very delicate matter."

You bet. Shrager has been candid about what he said. He told Greenslade he had simply wanted to register his disappointment about the Daily Mirror's coverage to its owners. Even so, he was strongly committed to the freedom of the press! His complaint was that the "right" to that freedom required that it be used fairly and responsibly. "The Mirror wasn't fair and wasn't accurate," he said. He meant it was not biased the way of the US press. Was limitation of freedom countenanced by Thomas Jefferson, a staunch defender of press freedom?"

 http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:pff3izL03nUJ:www.adelphiasophism.com/warandpropaganda/PressFreedom0.pdf%20fidelity%20daily-mirror%20morgan&hl=en




"The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing." He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands. "
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html



“Rumsfeld’s goal was to get a capability in place to take on a high-value target—a standup group to hit quickly,” a former high-level intelligence official told me. “He got all the agencies together—the C.I.A. and the N.S.A.—to get pre-approval in place. Just say the code word and go.” The operation had across-the-board approval from Rumsfeld and from Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser. President Bush was informed of the existence of the program, the former intelligence official said.



The people assigned to the program worked by the book, the former intelligence official told me. They created code words, and recruited, after careful screening, highly trained commandos and operatives from America’s élite forces—Navy seals, the Army’s Delta Force, and the C.I.A.’s paramilitary experts. They also asked some basic questions: “Do the people working the problem have to use aliases? Yes. Do we need dead drops for the mail? Yes. No traceability and no budget. And some special-access programs are never fully briefed to Congress.”

In theory, the operation enabled the Bush Administration to respond immediately to time-sensitive intelligence: commandos crossed borders without visas and could interrogate terrorism suspects deemed too important for transfer to the military’s facilities at Guantánamo, Cuba. They carried out instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret C.I.A. detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the sap command center in the Pentagon in real time, and sifted for those pieces of information critical to the “white,” or overt, world.

Fewer than two hundred operatives and officials, including Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were “completely read into the program,” the former intelligence official said. The goal was to keep the operation protected. “We’re not going to read more people than necessary into our heart of darkness,” he said. “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’”
 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact




Captain Wardrobe


does this read odd to you?

16.05.2004 11:02

E-mail Bulletin from the BBC - 15 May 2004:
Four soldiers are arrested and questioned in the investigation into the Daily Mirror hoax photo scandal, the Ministry of Defence says.


actual BBC article:
"The MoD says the arrests were not linked to the hoax pictures. The Mirror has apologised for running them.
On Saturday it said it would donate all proceeds from the syndicated sale of the hoax pictures to charity. Half of the money would be given to an Armed Forces charity of their own choosing, and the rest towards aiding the work of the international Red Cross , it said in a statement. "
BBC
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3717669.stm
[hmmm....the international Red cross...eh?]
see: Hospitaleers, knights of Malta...


While these developments were occurring, English Deputy Defense Minister Adam Ingram said during a parliamentary speech that the torture photos published in the Daily Mirror newspaper were 'definitely not taken in Iraq.' Ingram pointed out that the type of truck in one of the photos was never in Iraq. He said that those involved in the photo incidents would be charged with a crime, but added that details would not be disclosed until the investigation ends. Turks.US
 http://www.turks.us/article.php?story=20040514083552401

Captain Wardrobe


Poor Piers

16.05.2004 19:05

Whoever (MI5) hoaxed the pictures, put British troops in danger, not the Mirror, but it was a set up from the start to discredit Morgan. He fell for it. If he didn't back Gordon Brown, I'd feel sorry for him.

Og


Ta Og

16.05.2004 20:40

Glad somebody got the point I was trying to make and put it in clear terms

dh


it was our idea actually.

16.05.2004 21:12

the idea is to change tack on the tabloids,
now that we have such a Great Campaign
armada fleet three men in a tub ahoy there pirates!
thing afloat.

(in about twenty years "if he's discreet") we will send Peirs to a quiet a cambridge college to develop gout and do a guest stint as poet or something harmless.

Meanwhile, tomgirl engurland's pregnancy [for your trans-atlantic benefit jolly mateys of blighty] shall continue over in fort brag, as she faces her courtmartial.

torture shock psy-ops will be confirmed mid next week as considered non-profitable electioneering or negative war support tactics by the (sorry to remind you all) 150,000,000$ non accounted for Bush machine we are struggling against every word of the text).

It is thus, very good news for all of you.
"our british chums",
that the European Republicans "the auld kith type" indeed,
have taken over the show, assisted of course,
by the "royal wedding 2004 crew".
We are a motley team.
But we gave you it all.
from the literacy to the aprons
to your legal right to squat.

You will have normal transmission and stuff back again,
as soon as the European people's are safe. Then you can be
as british or english as you want.
...or indeed only you seem content to be.
complaining every moment of the Goddess given day.

In the interim period, we will (the irish and scottish amongst us) do our best
to make it as painless and un-noticable a transition as possible.
However our gallic pals will take the royal piss.
they've already started.
c'est magnifique!


You would win loads of friends
if you took down Blair/ followed by Bush.
You will not win long term favours and delights
if you take down Blair and leave Bush.
You will rightously piss us well off and we ARE quite rightously
vexed and miffed as it is,
if you take down Blair and therefore allow us get something worse
on either side of our Irish Atlantic Ocean.
We share that ocean with the Spanish, portuguese and South America.
by the way.

Sorry to be condescending, but english intellectuals,
especially those of the left, are not very au fait
with how such things really work.

Tranquility!
Liberty!
Fraternity!
Equality!
and Zero Equity!

¿can't you tell we're working on it?
good. and this time there'll be no rumours about a K14 u-boat in Donegal.
we call these things "emergencies".

you're lovely people in general.
but you have made a dog's dinner of your country,
but in a small part preferably to the other lot out in
The Dixie/Yankee/reconstructed Nazi empire base.
Whom we trust less than you.

now- who's going to read the new and improved Daily Mirror?

ipsiphi


He was totally stitched up.

17.05.2004 10:22

I don't give a fuck what Piers Morgan did during the miners strike that was a different world. These people (government) are trying their best to instill hate between societies on a global scale for their own motivations and I don't care why Piers Morgan pushed against it for morals or money. The only important thing is that one of the most outspoken antiwar editors in the British press was stitched up big time and a massive amount of anti war propaganda is just about to drop out of a lot of peoples view. The people sitting here whinging about small time politics are just content to sit on their arses thinking their way is right so that's just fine. Indymedia is individualistic - thats fine but if you don't support those who are acting for your beliefs then you are destined to lose. If you have any sense of responsibility to the people you say you are trying to help (Iraqis whoever) you'd be just straight fucked off about how the government had done this not happy a more right wing lefty than you had got shafted instead you're wearing smug smiles of 'I told you so'.
Some of you make me sick.

I'm would have voted Thatcher, I think capitalism is OK (having lived in communist / socialist countries) I hate this war and it's evil makers BBC (Bush Bliar Cheney etc) but when are you arseholes gonna realize that bitchin about the people who don't 'fully' agree with you aint gonna work? When you gonna talk to the majority eh? Never coz your too fucking self important to do so, you wouldn't even put a suit on to change the world because it would upset your individualism ... take a fucking long look at yourselves and tell me it aint true... well better still, show me, stop sitting in your little cliques and get out to other people and speak in their language, not your anti everything rhetoric.

IMF

IMF


Socialist?

17.05.2004 16:27

You didn't live in a communist country. There has NEVER BEEN a communist country?!?!

...


Socialist

17.05.2004 17:01

...

Vietnam is close enough. And we don't live in a capitalist society neither, it's corporate but your splitting hairs. My point is debates about should
homosexual rights come with palestinian autonomy is blatently ridiculous along with being
happy that Piers Morgan got screwed, you don't screw the people on your side over relatively petty issues when the real big shit is hitting the fan right around you. You keep your side tight, focused and driven on the issue and work at convincing those around you that the war is wrong, the energy used in the intergroup sniping is a complete waste.

IMF


im glad he's gone

19.05.2004 01:37

I'm glad he's gone,

he seemed to treat all issues in a highly sensationalist way from supermodellingfootballercelebrity to the war in iraq,

he is surprisingly enough naive in my opinion, and really shouldn't have been a national editor in the first place.

i support the war in iraq . i did a year ago and i do now,
I'm very sad that its happening and wish it wasn't, especially with the few thugs in the coalition forces abusing iraqi citizens in detention, but sadness and futile wishes do not constitute any basis for political leadership, the simple facts are that iraq (due to saddams unbelievable stupidity and arrogance) set its self on a collision course with the rest of the world, this war was an inevitable product of iraqs policies towards its neighbors and the UN.
we all saw the terrible results of 12 years of sanctions on iraq, and no-one had a solution, there was simply no end to the stalemate in site, with iraq fading fast since the first gulf war.

i suspect bush is an ignorant and foolish man, and I'm sure his reasons are not very noble, BUT I'm glad we (UK) and the other 20 ish countries that form the coalition have finally provided SOME sort of movement in the iraq tragedy, and at least now there is a possibility of a brighter future for the people there. i know this is difficult to believe , with the constant stream of bad news coming from the country, but it is possible with faith (not the spiritual kind) to imagine a new future for iraq, which simply was not the case 2 years ago. this is the future that people like Ezzedine Salim (US-appointed Governing Council chairman) are dying for , but he's just a puppet of the US so he deserved to die ? i don't think so, and yes the US have to appoint someone of iraqi nationality to chair an interim council, who else was going to select ? saddam hussein ? the iraqi people ? there's no way that democracy arrives over night, this is new and very scary territory for everybody concerned, and like most comfortable airmchair seated tossers i reckon that things could have been done better, but thats hindsight.

anyhow, i only arrived on this list because i think piers is a tosser, and now all of you lot think I'm one !

by the way I'm half iraqi, i haven't been there in living memory (left when very young) and for the last 10 years i wouldn't have dared go there to re-establish contact with my family if they are still alive, i hope that in a couple of years maybe it will be possible.

regards to you all, this is such a painful issue about the war, i just had to say something

adrian

adrian


WHO WHY

16.02.2006 10:59


WHO FAKED THEM?
WHAT WAS TO BE GAINED?

answer:

MI5 spook-liar-murderers ! to

- distract from ACTUAL torture by brits and yanks
- discredit the media so that next torture stories can be doubted
- discourage the media from further endeavours into uncovering torture

download videos:

 http://www.question911.com/links.php

Peter Power VISOR