Monday, January 17, 2011

Are we all holding our breath for Piers Morgan tonight?

So Piers Morgan is set to fill the seat vacated by Larry King at CNN's 9 p.m. timeslot starting tonight, and I'm curious if any of my state-side  readers will be watching. When I heard rumors months back that Morgan (I keep wanting to write Anthony -- guess I'm reading too much sci fi!) would be taking King's place, I thought, Hmm, now that's an interesting choice. I thought of him as the "nice guy" on Britain's Got Talent, Simon Cowell's foil of sorts -- the sweet-faced chap who inspired lust in Susan Boyle and who actually treated her very kindly.

Then I'd heard that Larry King admitted he didn't know who was Piers Morgan was, and Morgan got kind of huffy in the press about this. I wondered if this guy didn't have a bit of an ego problem. Larry King is the Methuselah of the news world and he probably doesn't remember his sixth wife's name. Lighten up, Francis.

Next up: Morgan recently got in a pissing match with a NY city news reporter on Twitter who dared to criticize him. Instead of ignoring the guy and taking the high road, Morgan started mocking the guy for having fewer Twitter followers than he did. Maybe this is something a serious journalist in Britain can get away with, but here, that was a cheesy thing to do ... something one would expect of a reality tv judge. Oops.

Now every time I turn on CNN I get a big dose of how Morgan is this hard-hitting journo who's going to ask the tough questions of his guests. And it makes me wonder -- how hard-hitting can this guy be if he flies into a fit after a bit of criticism on Twitter? And Oprah for his first guest? That's supposed to be a tough interview? What's he going to ask her ... what she really thinks of Jonathan Franzen?

6 comments:

  1. It will be interesting to see. I am wondering if he will ask her any difficult questions. I doubt it.

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  2. I don't even class hinm as a journo. After all, he ran a rag not a serious newspaper, although he was pretty cut throat in how he got his scoops. I read his autobiography last year (it's been out for years) ; he can be very nasty when he wants and seems to have a fragile and huge ego.
    I'm not sure how successful this show will be given tht it's in LK's time slot, and not a lot of Americans really know (or care) who Morgan is. I do think he's going to make a lot of enemies fast if he continues with the temper tantrums. It won't go down very well.

    Thanks for the reminder though. Despite the huge PR campaign, I had forgotten it was this evening. Will tune in.

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  3. Well - he paid homage to Oprah so will win the hearts of her legions. I liked the fact that he didn't talk to much, but wa-a-a-ay too deferential for me.

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  4. I actually forgot to tune in. (The Truth: I was watching The Bachelor). Well, one of these nights I'll have to watch.

    Toni, I loved your post about Gwnnie and her latest GOOP confessional. It's unbelievable how much self-awareness that woman lacks.

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  5. Put simply, Piers Morgan is a big fat smelly twerp who has a massive ego problem. He had one British journalist (Ian Hislop, editor of satire magazine Private Eye) followed for 6 months and made up stories about him simply because Hislop criticised him (repeatedly, admittedly).

    Anyway, that's not what I came here to say! What I wanted to say is taht I've just found your blog and it's rather splendid! Sorry for being somewhat distracted by Piers Morgan there for a moment. :)

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  6. "Big fat smelly twerp." Love it! Thanks, Richard, for your kind words. :-)

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