By James Simons-
Piers Morgan mocked Meghan Markle, thanking her for indirectly boosting his career, as he met up with his former Good Morning Britain co-host Susanna Reid as he picked up a broadcasting award and thanked Meghan Markle for boosting his career.
The former television host and Susanna Reid were pictured at the TRIC awards in central London with Mr Morgan sharing the picture on his Instagram and captioning it “back together”.after Mr Morgan beat her to the News Presenter award at the awards.
Speaking at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, Dame Carolyn McCall said: “I will just say that we vigorously defended both the programme and Piers to Ofcom and the reason we didn’t get pulled up by them is because of the programme making.”
Dame Carolyn also said there is “no way we wouldn’t be absolutely not just endorsing but championing freedom of speech and freedom of expression”.
Following Ofcom’s ruling, Mr Morgan questioned whether he could return to his job on Good Morning Britain.
Asked whether there was any prospect of Morgan returning to ITV, Dame Carolyn told the conference he had resigned from his role.
However, she said she expects to see the presenter as well as former GB News chairman Andrew Neil “working on some global platform any day soon”.
The former presenter left his position as host of the popular ITV talk show GMB in March, following multiple complaints over comments he made about Meghan Markle.
He has since launched multiple attacks against Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, describing Meghan as a liar over claims she to have married 3 days before the legal wedding, and has challenged both Prince Harry and his wife to name the royal who made the alleged racist remark. His challenge has not been taken up, despite suggestions that the Sussexes were considering doing so. Naming the individual has the potential to create more chaos over the issue, given the wide contention over the implications of the question, and the context in which it was made.
However, Morgan is feeling on the high, and looking to return on television anytime soon.
Morgan but told fans something big was on the horizon. He said: “Have patience, it won’t be long. It’s a lot bigger than GMB.”
“It’s not fighting talk, it’s just a lot bigger,” he added. “You’ll see soon.”
A recent report by broadcasting watchdog Ofcom cleared GMB of violating code, stating that programme contained sufficient challenge to provide adequate protection and context to its viewers. It said the broadcaster provided adequate protection to viewers, from potentially harmful and highly offensive statements about mental health and suicide, as there was sufficient challenge to such statements, which meant they were adequately contextualised.
The report featured the views of The Licensee, which described the discussion as “emotive”, featuring Mr Morgan’s “strong views… express[ed] forcefully”, which are well known and expected by
viewers. It added that viewers are aware of Mr Morgan’s “negative views about the Duchess of Sussex” and strong support for “the Royal family in their dealings with the Duke and Duchess”.
It quoted ITV ‘s defence in which the broadcaster said it was important, “from an editorial perspective”, to include alternative, robust views within the Programme to “counterbalance” Mr Morgan’s views. The Licensee said that “a range of contributors were booked to appear on the Programme, a number of whom were
known to disagree with Mr Morgan about the Duchess of Sussex and who were able to speak equally
forcefully”.
Ofcom said it acknowledged a clear public interest in programmes discussing mental health issues, because of its role in destigmatising the issue and enabling it .
However, the regulator said it also” considered the need for broadcasters to take particular care over how the subject is presented to audiences, in part to mitigate any potential risk that programmes may convey a message that sharing experiences of poor mental health could be met with disbelief, derision, or a lack of sympathy”.
Highlighting the critical rule of its code, it quoted 2.1 and 2.2, which states: ”In applying generally accepted standards broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context… Such material may include, but is not limited to… humiliation, distress, violation of human dignity, discriminatory treatment or language (for
example on the grounds of…race…).
According to Ofcom, the context of offensive material in terms of the complaints, were the adequate challenges provided by other participants of the show.
It made no direct ruling on Piers Morgan himself, except in the context of the broadcaster’s role in providing a balance through the different views aired on the show.
In the meantime Piers Morgan’s war against Meghan Markle continues, and will likely feature in any television slot he gets.
He must just be careful his war doesn’t for want of joy and revenge, develop into bullying.