Meet Piers Morgan - Britain's Shobha De
- In Current Affairs
- 12:14 PM, Aug 29, 2016
- Mayuresh Didolkar
Sant Tukaram, one of the most revered saints in Maharashtra, had famously said “निंदकाचे घर असावे शेजारी” which means your critics should be your next door neighbour. The advent of social media, especially Twitter, means we all can get all the critics we ever need , whether one lives next door to us or not.
British journalist and television personality Piers Morgan’s recent rant against the Olympic medal winner athletes PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, whom he dubbed ‘losers’, is an interesting case in point. Morgan went on a lengthy rant on twitter that included advising India to invest and focus on Tokyo 2020, and termed the hero’s welcome given to Sakshi and PV Sindhu as ‘Embarrassing”. Indian twitter was divided ( surprise !) with retired cricket player Virender Sehwag and bestselling author Chetan Bhagat countering him in a civil tone on one hand, and liberals like Shivam Vij and Pritesh Nandy congratulating Piers for ‘giving it to nationalists’ (sigh!). However, to have a true understanding of this conversation, it is important to move away from both extremes and analyse Morgan’s record first.
First thing all Indians who were upset with Morgan’s rant should understand is that in all probability it was nothing personal. Morgan is a typical TV personality who thrives on confrontations on social media. Exhibiting the traits of an attention seeking pre-teen, Morgan has a history of dissing athletes to get attention. For years, he has been demanding that his favourite Arsenal club sack its most celebrated manager Mr. Arsene Wenger. He can be quiet tenacious when he is hounding someone. Arsenal mid-fielder and hero of their FA cup final win in 2014, Aaron Ramsey, got so upset with Morgan’s constant hounding, that he refused to shake Morgan’s hand when they met a year later. Always true to his form, Morgan responded by calling one of the most prolific player of his favourite football club as ‘whatishisname’!
India is not even the first country Morgan targeted this Olympic season. When precocious American teen Ginny Thrasher pulled the upset of her life to win America’s first gold in women’s 10 meter air rifle event, Morgan’s tweet was “Least surprising news ever: America’s first gold medal is for shooting”. He was slammed all over social and mainstream media for bringing his gun control ideology in a sporting event, and indirectly conflating a young achiever with mass shooters. So, calling PV Sindhu and Sakshi as ‘losers’ is consistent with his strategy to get attention by maligning performing athletes.
If we take a look at Morgan’s professional career, it is one full of feuds taken too far, like the time when he sent photographers to the doorstep of fellow British media personality Clive Anderson after an argument. This was repeated again when British journalist Ian Hilsop accused Morgan of having him followed, and his house watched. Morgan who referred to Hilsop as ‘moon faced midget’ seems largely unrepentant of his antics.
The true low of Morgan’s career perhaps has been the infamous phone hacking episode, where blogger Paul Staines alleged that Morgan obtained information about the affair between one time coach of English national football team, Sven Goran Eriksson and Swedish television presenter Ulrikka Jonsson through phone hacking. Morgan was forced to appear via satellite link at the Leveson Inquiry, a judicial public inquiry that looked into practices and ethics of British press. Later in 2013, he was also questioned, under caution, by police officers investigating phone hacking allegations during his tenure as editor. (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-26192373) At the end of the inquiry Lord Justice Leveson had this to say about Morgan’s participation in the phone hacking episode “The] evidence does not establish that [Morgan] authorised the hacking of voicemails or that journalists employed by TMG [Trinity Mirror Group] were indulging in this practice ... What it does, however, clearly prove is that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it." (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/nov/30/piers-morgan-phone-hacking-leveson-inquiry)
Sufficiently unembarrassed to be joking about it, - a good title for Morgan’s autobiography, don’t you think?
My own favourite Morgan fail moment is when he went toe to toe with Conservative journalist Ben Shapiro on the gun control issue and got his rear so thoroughly kicked that now Shapiro uses the clip of that interview in his speeches about ‘how to tackle liberal bullies’. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIQtxLCgrM) If you watch this clip carefully, you will understand why Morgan prefers the 140 character limited platform of Twitter. He thrives on off-the cuff comments and insults but really does not have a whole lot of rational argument in his support.
A painfully unbiased reader at this point in time may stop reading, and ask “what exactly is your point Mayur? Are you just dragging all his dirty linen in public just because he slandered your country?”
Hell, no!
Am I disappointed with India’s performance? Of course, I am. Do I feel we should be open to feedback from outsiders who are likely to be neutral and dispassionate about the whole situation? By all means, we should. But here is the thing folks and there is no escaping from it- far too often, we have a tendency of taking Saint Tukaram’s advice far too literally and accept rebuke and mockery even from people who do not have a moral right to preach us. This kind of self-flagellation does no good to any of us other than allowing smug individuals like Morgan to derive some cheap publicity and letting the so called left liberals to use nationalists as punching bags. No matter how generous I try to be towards Morgan, I fail to see how accepting his insults and mockery is going to help India perform better at next Olympics. It is not like he engineered Britain’s stunning medal tally this time round.
Piers Morgan is Shobha De's soul twin separated by a few thousand miles. When De made her ignorant remarks about our athletes at Rio, many columnists including myself wrote rebuttals in civil language. Yet, two days later, when De wrote in Sunday Times of India, she chose to ignore the best cricketer ever, and Olympic medal winners who all disagreed with her, and ranted about ‘trolls’ (yeah SRT and Bindra- you trolls!) who threatened the FoE of this crusader who was telling it like it was! (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/politically-incorrect/when-troller-number-1-wrote-me-an-open-letter/)
People Morgan and De have no interest in improving any team’s performance. Passion for sports does not drive them, condescension and contempt for their fellow human beings does. Their formula is simple- Say something inflammatory and insulting in social media, ensure it gets attention and when you get slammed for it-claim bullying. While making this claim, calmly ignore all the people who point the logical inconsistency in your arguments, and focus on those few ill-tempered opponents to paint your entire opposition as morally deficient.
Won’t ignoring such people be a better option then?
I disagree for two reasons. As Rupa Subramanya pointed out in her tweet,( https://twitter.com/rupasubramanya/status/768486578821992449) thanks to Morgan a lot of self-loathing Indians with post-colonial baggage were exposed. The palpable joy of people like Vij and Mihir Sharma at Indians getting insulted spoke more about them than the Indians Morgan mocked. Second and equally important reasons is that with internet reaching more and more people every day, we have to view social media battleground as a physical battleground. Any ground left uncontested is quickly overrun by your enemies.
I would like to finish with a little message to the pompous Mr. Morgan- Sir, before advising us Indians to ‘aspire’ and ‘plan’, please examine your own credentials. For all your bluster and clever insults, I failed to find one clip/one quote from you that would establish you as an authority on sports (any sports) in my mind. As for calling a 21 year old girl who went through an roaster of top shuttlers in the world , only to fall tantalizingly short at the final hurdle, a loser- it says nothing about our hero’s achievements, and just reaffirms what Ben Shapiro said during that epic ass kicking, i.e. you are a bully.
You see Morgan, we are open to being advised by foreigners. But then again, you call Kevin Peterson ‘the best’ so, thanks but no thanks, I think we will wait for someone with slightly better standards to advise us!
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