Piers Morgan may be the next person to become entangled in the British media's ever-widening scandal, as members of Parliament have begun calling for the CNN host and former Daily Mirror editor to come in for questioning on phone hacking at the Mirror and other British tabloids.
The calls came after it was revealed that Morgan, who replaced Larry King in January and was editor at News of the World before going to the Mirror in 1995, has known about phone hacking techniques since at least 2001. British blogger Guido Fawkes posted the following excerpts from Morgan's 2005 autobiography:
“Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages. I’ll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.”
The blogger alleges that Morgan was aware that phone hacking was used to write a story about an affair between Swedish television presenter Ulrika Jonsson and football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson in April 2002. The story later won Morgan the "Scoop of the Year" prize at the British Press Awards.
British leader Adrian Sanders was the first to implicate Morgan and the Daily Mirror last week, when he said that the allegation justified an independent inquiry beyond the scope of News International. Morgan took to television to deny any knowledge of phone hacking at his past publications, while the Mirror similarly issued a statement denying the phone hacking claims.