How would he know?
Who gets to say that X is lying? Who gets to say that X is lying on a widely-seen tv news-chat show? Who gets to say that X is lying without troubling to offer any evidence?
Anybody who works for Fox News, is one answer, but Fox News isn’t alone in allowing and indeed inviting a lot of claims of the “X is lying” type.
Piers Morgan has made a name for himself with that kind of thing.
Meghan Markle formally complained to UK broadcaster ITV after Piers Morgan lashed out at her and accused her of lying about her mental health on “Good Morning Britain,” according to a report.
What jumps out at you about that? What jumps out at me is how unlikely it is that Piers Morgan has any real way to know the truth about Meghan Markle’s mental health. Does she send him a report? Do any or all doctors or therapists she talks to send him a report? Do any of them send such a report to the news media? No, no, no, and no. So where does he get the confidence to say she’s lying about it?
Amid the backlash, the famed host sensationally quit the show Tuesday, just hours after storming off the set when his co-star Alex Beresford called him out for continuing to “trash” Markle following the couple’s stunning sit-down with Oprah Winfrey.
You could see it as punching up – the British royals do suck up an enormous amount of cash to keep the whole absurd pantomime going, at a time when the other remaining European monarchs ride bicycles to work. There is a hell of a lot of hierarchical flummery and “protocol” that could just go away today with no harm done. But in plenty of other ways you can see it as punching down – she’s a woman, she’s mixed race, she’s middle class, she’s a Yank. In a passel of Windsors she’s very much Not One of Us. Morgan didn’t trash her on behalf of the working class, he trashed her on behalf of Rigidly Unchanging Monarchism.
And he had no way of knowing that she was lying.
Morgan had expressed doubts on the show after Markle opened up to Winfrey about having suicidal thoughts, including claims that she was told that seeking help would not look good for a member of the royal family.
“Who did you go to?” Morgan said Monday on “Good Morning Britain.” “What did they say to you? I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she said, Meghan Markle. I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report.”
There is a real matter of journalistic ethics here. It’s a big no-no to announce that people are lying in the absence of rock-solid evidence. Saying you don’t believe her isn’t quite announcing that she’s lying, but it’s close, especially with the added “I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report.” That may be why Ofcom is looking into it.
Susanna Reid has told viewers of the first edition of Good Morning Britain after the departure of Piers Morgan that they “disagreed on many things”, including his remarks on the Duchess of Sussex, and described him as an “outspoken, challenging, opinionated, disruptive broadcaster”.
…
Morgan walked off set on Tuesday after a disagreement with the weather presenter Alex Beresford and was to face an Ofcom investigation after 41,000 complaints over his remarks, including one sent on Meghan’s behalf. In a tweet, sent while the programme was on air on Wednesday morning, Morgan appeared to confirm that his refusal to retract his comments lay behind his exit.
He wrote: “On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. If you did, OK. Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on.” He said he was “off to spend more time with my opinions” and appended a Winston Churchill quote about free speech.
Freedom of speech, fine, but news outlets don’t have to employ people who fling around accusations of dishonesty.
So where does he get the confidence to say she’s lying about it?
From being a white male?
The Royal Family is probably the thing I care least about in the world. I mean, it makes me furious for even existing, but I can and will not learn any of the details. I don’t even know what all the princes are called, I think or which one is which or married to whom, loyal subject that I am. Actually, I might care about Morgan slightly less than I care about the Royal Family.
BUT the main issue here, I think, is that Morgan said he disbelieved her specifically over her claims of having suicidal thoughts. I believe that ITV follows the Samaritans’ guidelines which state categorically that you absolutely shouldn’t do that because it’s shitty and it teaches young people that they won’t be believed if they tell adults they have suicidal thoughts.
I saw a discussion on Twitter about whether, using proper British slang, Morgan should be referred to as a wanker or a tosser.
After heated debate it was decided that bellend was the most appropriate.
And that message is already too prevalent. My parents didn’t believe me – until the night my dad had to get the landlord of my apartment to let me in so he could get me to the hospital. I guess he got the landlord, because I had already lost consciousness and was on my way to dying. Yeah, not believed.
I also was not believed by anyone over allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. I think it might be some sort of pattern.
Okay, latsot, I know wanker and tosser, but bellend? Take pity on us Yanks…(yes I could Google, but it’s more fun to ask).
One little tidbit (or, for latsot’s benefit, titbit): Morgan had what he considered a date with Markle just before she met Harry. And he’s bitter about it:
Yikes! It’s not “ghosting” someone to go your own way after a two hour chat in a pub.
I think Alex Beresford referred to that while he was shouting at Morgan but I couldn’t bring myself to Google for more information (because I really don’t want to know anything about Morgan’s dating life).
Iknklast:
I will refer you to Urban Dictionary’s definition:
Piers Morgan and Meghan Markle had quite a slanging match a couple of years ago, each accusing the other of trying to seduce them. I could never understand it, until my husband told me that Piers Morgan owns quite a few TV franchises in America, and then it all made sense. As for her accusations of suicidal ideation, her own mother works (or did work then) for a suicide prevention hotline. Why couldn’t she contact her mother? Prince Harry was in therapy for seven years before he met her, in fact she got him to stop, couldn’t he have referred her to his own specialist? The Royal Family are surrounded by police officer, flunkeys etc all the time, would none of them noticed? Apparently, the evening when this is supposed to happened she attended some grand event and was right as rain. We know she is not ad draw to allowing her negative feelings show because of the way she acted in South Africa and Australia, soI for one agree with Piers.
#3 iknklast
Picture a bell tilted at just the right angle, so that the tip of the clapper peeks out from under the rim.
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#4 Maroon
Ah, that explains much of it. Piers wanted to put his penis inside of her, and he’s a rich and famous white man so he’s entitled to that. When she chose someone else, she invited his entirely justified rage. That fucking hussy, going out with a guy for an evening and then choosing to spend her time with other company in that same evening!
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#7 Sue r
Depression is one of those things that people will hide and generally hide very well. Think of the suicides that make the news – the mourners will often be saying things like “but he was so cheerful! I had no idea” etc. etc.. A great example of this would be the suicide of Robin Williams, surely you remember the outpouring of shock and disbelief? It takes a keen eye to see through a depressed person’s cheery screen. No one saw through mine when I was depressed.
Wow, here’s an idiotic heading for you:
Piers Morgan breaks silence after controversial Meghan Markle comments
“Breaks silence”? He threw a noisy tantrum on air and then announced to the world that he was quitting in a huff. He’s now speaking about it the next day. How was that a silence?
Well maybe for him overnight and part of the next day is notable silence.
I love that it’s the weather guy who ripped into Piers Morgan. I’ve not seen any of this, I’ve only heard a clip, but he really went for it. And it sounded to me like the entire studio just watched and listened in awe. At any point, a producer – or just anyone more important than the nice chap who talks about the weather for 90 seconds – could have intervened if they had wanted to. Seems like they didn’t want to.
Piers Morgan is undoubtedly a bully, but that doesn’t make him wrong. The weathermzn Alex Beresford, I’d black and this is turning into a nasty racially divisive issue. Yes, people do cover up mental illness, and Meghan Markle is unquestionably mentally ill, however, not in the way she wants us to believe. If you research her back story you will find it is a litany of bullying other people and unexplained absences. So many lies, so little time. She says the Royal Family won’t allow members to seek psychiatric intervention, and yet Prince Muggins was doing just that until she convinced him that she could cure him with yoga and herb tea. She says they were married in their backgarden by the Archbishop of Canterbury three days before the large, extremely costly wedding they insisted on having, despite the fact that she was a divorcee. It is actually illegal to marry without witness and not in a designated place, yet she is convinced that hey Dr so. Is she a) confused, b) knowingly lying or c) living her own truth? I’m not going to dissect any more of her gibberish, suffice it to say, they are America’s problem no. You can pay for them and remember, keep those contributions going to Archewell. One last thing which I actually think shows deeply disturbed personalities. They both talked about eating roast chicken, that Archie’s first word was crocodile and his favourite words currently are hydration and safe driving. They also said the Queen sent them a waffle maker for Xmas. I am grateful to them for augmenting. Y education, you’re never to old to learn. I looked up those words on the Urban Dictionary and they are certain sex acts which a n infant and a ninety year old woman would be highly unlikely to practice.
Sue r,
To echo what Holms said, depression can be far from visible even (perhaps especially) in people who are under intense scrutiny.
I suffered from quite severe depression for years. I was in a fairly high profile job, meeting people all day every day, giving talks, sometimes in front of hundreds of people, trying to secure funding to keep everyone employed, making decisions that affected lots of people, trying to do actual science…
And I don’t think anyone knew I was depressed. Not my colleagues, my friends or even my wife. It was quite a long time before I realised it myself.
People experience depression differently, but for me it was a series of intense anxieties which could club together to spiral out of control and a sense of my always putting on the brakes and withdrawing from everything, limiting how I experienced and interacted with every part of the world. With this came a deep, constant feeling of loss and lack of control. I had some symptoms often associated with PTSD (I’ve never been diagnosed with PTSD, although I did have a somewhat traumatic childhood so possibly that was a component, who knows?) and I kept those hidden, too. Or at least, when they showed, they showed in other types of behaviour such as exaggerated enthusiasm, unusually high or low attention to detail or whatever other coping mechanism I could cobble together.
It was pretty awful. But like I said, I could still do my job, be the life and soul of the party (although this was a huge chore and an enormous drain) and control my erratic thoughts and behaviour when eyes were on me. I didn’t ask for help first because I didn’t think I needed it and later because I thought I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t want to burden anyone else with problems that were confined to the inside of my own head, even though as a rational person I knew it was affecting other people.
During much of this time, I considered suicide very seriously and almost constantly. These thoughts seemed very rational and well-considered. They became normal, just part of the background of my mind rather than something to tell anyone about or to get help with. I have no doubt at all that a sufficiently large perturbation would have led to my doing the world a favour.
It’s quite possible – perhaps even usual – to be severely depressed and have sincere suicidal intentions without it showing. To be in a state like that, to finally screw up the courage to tell someone and find that you’re not believed because it doesn’t show…. Well, I have no idea what that would feel like, but iknklast does.
It is being reported that The Duchess of Sussex has decreed that ‘no old, white men’ are to report on her doings. Way to go!
What do you mean “it is being reported”?
Sue r, as someone who has a long history of depression, and is still currently in treatment for it, I recognize your comments. I hear them all the time from people who know shit all about me, but saw me smile at someone in the grocery store or crack a joke in my class and think they know better that I am not depressed. A lot of people put depression down to attention seeking behavior, especially suicide attempts, and refuse to believe that someone attempts suicide because they want to die.
And no, it is not impossible to have suicidal ideation even while under intense scrutiny without anyone knowing. A depressive usually retains all their mental faculties, understands the implications of appearing depressed in a world that still considers it a moral failing (all our PC words to the contrary), and will make every effort to maintain a facade. I was quite good at that for a long time, but then my armor shattered. I am quite good at that now (I rebuilt my armor). Very few people who know me would list me as depressed, unless they know me well. My husband is aware of it, and frightened by it. My son is at least somewhat aware of it, but I don’t see him, he lives a long way away, and we only talk on the phone. A couple of my closest friends are aware of it, but mostly because they are writing buddies and it frequently creeps into my writing. They suffer from depression (and do not look depressed most of the time), and recognize it in my stories.
There is very little that irks me more than someone who does not know someone personally (or even in most cases people who do know them personally but superficially) to expound on whether someone else is depressed or not. THERE IS NO WAY YOU HAVE A GODDAMN CLUE unless you are walking in their shoes. It’s like believing in God…I am willing to believe someone who tells me they believe in God, even if they clearly don’t believe in the same god other god-botherers do. I am willing to accept someone’s assessment that they are depressed even if they don’t present as depressed. There are times when questioning that may have some validity, but that should be done by a person who has the knowledge, skills, and access to appropriately assess that. In this case, I don’t believe it is necessary to question this unless she is trying to force some action based on it. If all she wants is sympathy, then I am prepared to give it to her. It costs me nothing, and I am genuinely sympathetic with anyone who is suffering from depression.
As for “old, white men”, well, frankly I am a bit sick of old white men myself. As an old, white woman I’ve had more than my fill of them.
Well said.
It is being reported means newspapers etc are reporting it in this country. Quite frankly, the more I read about this whole fiasco, the more of a setup it appears to me. When Baby Archie was born, noone except for Gayle King was allowed to see him. When he was eventually presented to the British public, it was her alone outside Kensington Palace, holding the baby so the only sight the photographer’s got of him was the soles of his feet. Recently she has tried to justify her behaviour by saying that she didn’t want Archie’s first sight of photographer’s to be the same as Princess Diana’s last. Sorry if you have had suffered from depression, but you are not Meghan Markle. She is a different person to you, you can not project your insecurities and anxieties onto her or anyone else.
Yes oddly enough when you make a lot of wild assertions, just saying “newspapers etc are reporting it in this country” isn’t really adequate. (Not least you seem to be assuming we know you and where you are, but we don’t. “This country” could be Uzbekistan for all we know.) Now you’ve added yet more wild assertions with no source.
I’m not particularly a partisan for Meghan Markle but I also don’t particularly think it’s fair for people to be flinging a bunch of unsourced shit in her direction.
Sue r,
Nobody here is projecting their insecurities and anxieties onto Meghan Markle. You are the one claiming some mystical insight into her psyche, we’re the ones saying that’s not possible.
Wish I did live in Uzbekistan, except no doubt it’ not the best in terms of female emancipation and democratic rights. No, I’m in dear old Blighty, England. The papers are full of this stuff, no doubt you will argue that it is all malicious lies, so how do you know it isn’t true. Our papers have been reporting on this for two or three years, she has form here. I don’t think they are wild assertions, maybe I am too long in the tooth, Sen too much. Anyway, the end game is in sight. Archiewell Productions (incidentally an anagram of Rachel, her first name) have hired a Hollywood TV producer, Ben Browning to head it. Known for thrillers such as ‘The Room’ and ‘Passengers’. His latest is called ‘Promising Young Woman’. I quote from IMDb ‘ A young woman, traumatised by a tragic evrnt in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who crossed her path.’. sounds familiar? Very diverse. He is another international Brit. I suppose he will hire a diverse crew and they will make thrillers that show female empowerment Sexy look that). My feeling is that this is what she wanted from the beginning. People who knew her when she lived in Canada said that she was on the look out for a billionaire, she got Muggins instead.
Incidentally, I do hope her suicidal depression doesn’t stop her from attending any Hollywood parties and generally hobnobbing with the glitterati. It would be such a shame.
Sue r – read what I said. Read what latsot said @ 20. The point is not that MM is perfect, the point is that bystanders don’t know because we have no reliable way of knowing. Of course I don’t “know it isn’t true”; I didn’t claim to know: I pointed out that you can’t know. That’s the point of the post – Piers Morgan is very unlikely to know the things he says with such emphasis.
Is that you, Piers?
What I do know is she twists the facts, or as OW would put it she has her own truth. As a philosopher (you are a philosopher aren’t you?). An example is she claims that Archie was denied a title because he is the first person of colour in the RF. That is a total lie and the Queen’s other GREATGrNdchilren are not Princes or Princesses either. She is either an idiot who is incapable of gras
ING constitutional law or a malicious trouble aker or out of touch with the reality most of the world operates in. Do you think that it impossible to have any science of human psychology, where associated phenomena can lead one diagnostically to make predictions? We can know things because they take place in front of us, or is sense data unreliable? I know how I have observed Meghan Markle behave, the things she has said (the urban dictionary), the malicious falsehoods and the way she has treated people. I’m not going to cite chapter and verse because this one finger typing is annoying. But, if we can’ know anything from observation and predictions, how will we ever know it. Piers Morgan can know about Meghan Markle’s character because A) he met her, b) he was a Fleet Street editor who worked for a paper dealing in ‘human interest’ stories, The Daily Mirror, and because he has judgement. You may argue that many things are unknowable, or that consistency is not always followed. That is your perogative and your truth.
No, I’m not a philosopher, and I’ve never said I was.
You almost had it for a second – you said “She is either an idiot” or x or y. There you go. She could be wrong, she could be confused, she could be misled, and so on.
No, of course I don’t think it’s impossible to make predictions, but I think it’s very foolish and destructive and wrong to make them with flat-out certainty. Trump does that every time he flaps his lips, and it’s not pretty.
Your claimed reasons for Piers Morgan’s ability to know Markle’s character with enough certainty to make public assertions about it are not particularly persuasive, especially “he was a Fleet Street editor who worked for a paper dealing in ‘human interest’ stories, The Daily Mirror.” Some newspapers are serious, and careful about the truth; others, not so much.
Which is exactly why Meghan Markle doesn’t want pale, stale men to write copy concerning her doings. There is only one truth and it’s deeply personal and unique to each person, is that right? Trump and Markle strike me as very similar personality types, narcisstic bullies, but, hey that’s my reality. You just have to learn how to identify people as you go through life, cuts down on a lot of aggro. Looking forward to the Netflix series and Spotify podcasts. Bound to spread love.
No, there’s only one reality. I like to call it ‘reality’. What you’re talking about is opinion. Opinions have their uses but they are not very reliable descriptions of reality.
No, ffs, that is not right. You made a lot of factual assertions about things you’re very unlikely to know (because all of us are). Saying Markle strikes you as whatever is different from that, because it’s clearly personal opinion. If you’d put it that way in the first place I wouldn’t have argued.
Sue r, you have said a lot of things about Markle which may be true; I don’t know because I do not follow the royal family. I find them boring and not my thing. Still, there is literally not one thing in what you have claimed as Markle’s behavior or personality that precludes her being depressed or even suicidal. I promise you, I have worked with depressed people (in addition to being one), and there is no one way to be depressed. And people with crappy personalities can be depressed…and suicidal. So your arguments say literally nothing about whether she is or is not depressed with suicidal ideation. That is something you cannot know and I cannot know. Neither can Piers Morgan even though he did have dinner with her. Almost none of the men I have dated had any idea I was depressed…and some of them I went out with for months. Only three of the men I ever dated knew that…and two of them were men I married. But during much of my dating life I was clinically depressed, in treatment, and suicidal. So don’t tell me his ‘knowing’ her gives him any special insight into her mental status, because it doesn’t.
And I am not projecting anything. She claimed to be depressed and suicidal, I did not claim she was. I know literally nothing about her except what I read on this site. I care even less, at least in reference to her public persona. But I do care that as a person, she could be extremely depressed, and in that case, I can feel true sympathy…make that empathy. It requires no projection to accept the possibility that someone who says they are depressed is actually depressed. It is not the same as saying a man can be a woman or a woman can be an otter; it is a natural thing that happens to a lot of us, and it is a destructive, debilitating disease. I feel sorry for people who feel it, because I understand. They don’t have to be nice people for me to feel sympathy for their despair. I might make an exception for anyone with the last name of Trump, though. I hope they are depressed.
La Merkel’s depression certainly hasn’t disabled her from getting what she wants, lording it over Hollywood. Yes, she may be depressed, but what does that mean? If bring depressed means you get a half million wedding, loads of free stuff, and £100,000.000 to make TV movies for Netflix, I wish I was depressed.
Sorry, just fact checked that, the wedding coat £32,000,000. II don’t deny she has psychological issues, just not the ones she wants us to think she has.
So first she was lying about being depressed, and now she may be depressed, “but so what?” That seems like moving the goalpost to me. Also, there’s a difference between being rich and famous despite being depressed and between being rich and famous because of one’s depression. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be Curt Cobain for all the money in the world (And, as an introvert, being famous would be punishment enough in itself)
Ok, we get that you don’t like this person, so why not just leave it at that? Personally I’m no no position to agree or disagree since I don’t even know who she is and don’t have any particular desire to find out.
*Kurt Cobain
That was moving the goalposts halfway around the planet. Jeez.
I wrote this post because I’m interested in journalism & lying & knowing the difference & due caution & all that. The core point of it is: Piers Morgan is a journalist so why is he being so sloppy by calling people liars when he can’t know they are? The subject matter he was being sloppy about is just an example. I suppose I’m also a little interested in the car crash of “royalty” and race, but mostly it’s this business of journalists crapping on journalistic ethics.