Double Take – Peerless Piers returns to American TV

Dear Readers, it’s faster for me to just copy and paste from Wikipedia in case you are not familiar with Piers Morgan.

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (/pɪərs/; né O’Meara; born 30 March 1965) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He is currently a co-presenter of the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain from Monday to Wednesday each week. He is a controversial figure on the show.

Morgan began his career in Fleet Street as a writer and editor for several tabloid papers, including The Sun, News of the World, and the Daily Mirror. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century.^[1] On television, he hosted Piers Morgan Live on CNN from 2011 to 2014, replacing Larry King Live in the timeslot following King‘s retirement.^[2][3] He was a judge on America’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent.^[4] In 2008, Morgan won the seventh season of the US Celebrity Apprentice.^[5] In the UK, he has presented Piers Morgan’s Life Stories since 2009, and Good Morning Britain since 2015.^[6][7] Morgan has written eight books, including four volumes of memoirs.

Tonight I was pleasantly surprised to see Piers Morgan back in the US news. As Wikipedia notes, in 2011 Morgan replaced the popular and respected Larry King on CNN and stayed on until 2014. King’s departure signaled an awkward time for CNN. A once fairly good news source steadily became the ultra-biased stuff we now see (or don’t).

Not to say that FOX News is unbiased. Of course it is biased. We are all biased. Human beings are not God. We each have limited opinions, whether we wish to admit it or not.

Once in a blue moon, I hear each network giving voice to their opponents’ opinions – as if reporting in an unbiased manner – but these token offerings are usually shot down in favor of the overall network stance.

Things have become polarized. And that’s okay, as long as we have at least two contrasting positions through which to compare.

In today’s Double Take, Morgan points out that both sides – liberals and conservatives – have an obligation to be responsible journalists and not suppress freedom of speech. Myself, I had to smile a bit at that. The reality is that ‘responsible’ usually means uncovering or cherry-picking the apparent facts that hopefully disprove your opponent’s take and advance your own.

So I thought this segment was a touch hokey in that regard.

Let’s face it, no network is above spin.

But again, if we only had CNN and the other major outlets without FOX News, we’d just be eating the same old molasses on our cereal every morning without ever tasting eggs.

A strange analogy, perhaps.

But my point is, we really need at least two sides.

Otherwise, dictatorship and tyranny will certainly reign.

Watch the above clip and see what you think.