News Corp’s hiring of Piers Morgan for TalkTV is a victory for free speech
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Piers Morgan looked like the cat who’d got the cream as he posed alongside Rupert Murdoch yesterday. Having just signed a deal reported to be worth £5 million with News Corp and Fox News, confirming his status at the apex of British broadcasting, Morgan’s broad grin was only to be expected. More surprising, at least to some, was Murdoch’s equally evident satisfaction. “Piers is the broadcaster every channel wants but is too afraid to hire,” the executive chairman of News Corp said.
True enough — yet it was an astonishing coup nonetheless. Morgan has always been a man of the centre Left, for one thing, so his choice as anchorman of TalkTV is unexpected. Many had feared that Murdoch’s new television station would be the British version of Fox News, but this hiring suggests that it will aim for a broader audience than the American network.
There are also reasons why other channels have been wary of Morgan. As TheArticle noted here , he left his last job as presenter of Good Morning Britain after a blazing row with ITV over his comments about Meghan Markle. A ruling by the watchdog Ofcom found in favour of the journalist, leaving his credibility in better shape than his employer’s. The fact was that the chief executive of ITV, Dame Carolyn McCall, bowed to pressure from the Duchess of Sussex to force her star presenter to grovel, a decision that was bound to backfire — and did. Now that Morgan is heading off to front a dangerous new rival, Dame Carolyn can expect to receive her own P45 in due course.
Equally noteworthy has been the failure of GB News to recruit Piers Morgan while it had the chance. After the departure of its founding chairman, Andrew Neil, the new station appears to be retreating into its comfort zone, dominated by Nigel Farage and his erstwhile Ukip fan club plus assorted lockdown sceptics and anti-vaxers. Morgan would have given GB News a chance to extend its appeal beyond this narrow base and to deliver on its promise to offer a genuine alternative to “mainstream” broadcasters. Having missed that opportunity, and with TalkUK providing what will doubtless be a more professional service for the many millions who are seeking an alternative to the illiberal liberalism of the BBC and Channel 4, the future for GB News looks bleak. If Neil were now to bury the hatchet with Murdoch and join TalkTV, it would confirm the failure of GB News to reach out beyond its niche. As for its claim to be a champion of free speech: that was shown to be hollow when the channel forced Guto Harri to resign after he took the knee on air — making its presenter in effect a victim of the very “cancel culture” it had sworn to combat.
In the end, the real threat to free speech comes not from wokery but from the culture of the echo chamber. Not everyone agrees with this analysis. Some radical voices on the Left have criticised free speech itself because it can be exploited by far-Right movements to advocate racism and genocide. Paul Mason, the Marxist writer and former BBC journalist, argues that the United States is “most at risk” of a fascist takeover. Thanks to the absolute protection offered to free speech by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, he claims, Right-wing extremists can spread fake news and foment violence with impunity, as the storming of the Capitol on January 6 demonstrated. Mason argues here and in his new book How to Stop Fascism (Penguin, £20) that only laws designed to restrict hate speech can prevent a resurgence of genocidal, neo-Nazi violence.
What’s wrong with Mason’s argument is not merely that he is blind in one eye, seeing threats to democracy only from the far Right and ignoring equally dangerous threats from elsewhere on the political spectrum — for example, China’s front organisations, far-Left identity politics or radical Islamism. The problem is rather that he refuses to accept that the only antidote to hate speech is free speech — the chance to expose lies and propaganda in the public arena. A society that gives up on free speech has already sold the pass, unlike one that preserves a genuine public sphere where good ideas can drive out bad ones.
Like any ecosystem, however, freedom of speech does need to be protected. The main threat to such an ecology comes from the exclusive nature of social media, which confines people to online spaces in which they never hear their opinions challenged. This culture of the echo chamber has led to a polarisation of politics on both sides of the Atlantic, as has been widely observed. The ugly manifestations of this narrowing of minds, this shrivelling of the public square, are all around us. The solution is not less free speech, but more: more new outlets aimed at audiences who actively enjoy hearing both sides of the argument. We need to cultivate a public that rejects the echo chamber and relishes the cut-and-thrust of controversy and debate.
That means taking a risk with controversial journalists such as Piers Morgan. As Rupert Murdoch says, “Piers…says what people are thinking and feeling.” When he cast doubt on Meghan Markle’s claim to have suffered mental illness, ITV received a record number of complaints. But as Ofcom stated, his claim was robustly challenged by his co-presenter and others. Just because comments offend people does not mean they must be suppressed and the commentator penalised.
In broadcasting, as in the press and on social media, the widest possible range of views should be permitted, provided that they can be challenged. Incitement to violence or racial hatred is already prohibited by law. Causing offence, unless it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt to incite violence, should only be prosecuted in exceptional circumstances. In a free country, there should always be a presumption in favour of freedom of speech and expression. It is a pity that UK lacks an equivalent of the First Amendment but we are quite glad that we don’t have a Second Amendment, conferring the right to bear arms. An unwritten constitution can adapt more easily to new threats to freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
We should welcome TalkTV as a valuable extension to our media landscape. News Corp’s hiring of Piers Morgan is a blow for its rivals but a victory for free speech. He isn’t everyone’s cup of tea — but so what? That is the whole point. There will be plenty of other viewpoints on offer. Competition is the best spur to broadening the range of voices in broadcasting. The best response to the new kid on the block will be for the rest to raise their game. The more envious sniping there is at Piers Morgan, the more it confirms him as top cat.
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