Piers Morgan to Paul McCartney: we didn't hack you (Reuters)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Piers Morgan has responded to countless allegations that he knew of, condoned or practiced phone hacking while editor of the Daily Mirror, but Monday night on Conan O'Brien he switched roles and became the accuser.

Morgan accused Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, of hacking her former husband, the same charge Mills has leveled against Morgan.

"Paul McCartney is apparently now claiming someone hacked his phone," Morgan told O'Brien. "I suspect it was Heather Mills because in the divorce, if you study the divorce papers, Paul McCartney accused Heather then of hacking into his phones and passing information to the papers."

The conversation started when O'Brien asked Morgan about the hacking charges, to which Morgan said: "I kind of thought when Heather Mills poked her head up above the parapet, the whole thing got completely ridiculous."

Morgan then recounted how he introduced Mills and McCartney, eventually costing McCartney $50 million in settlements. Morgan said Mills should thank him, and added if there was anyone he should apologize to, it is Sir Paul.

You can see the clip here: http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/piers-morgan-apologizes-paul-mccartney-conan-29921

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McCartney: I'm going to police over hacking claim (AP)

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – Thu Aug 4, 6:40 pm ET

LONDON – Former Beatle Paul McCartney said Thursday he would contact police over his ex-wife's claim that the couple had been spied upon by a British newspaper.

In comments to U.S. television journalists delivered via videolink from Cincinnati, Ohio, McCartney said that he would be in touch with law enforcement as soon as he was finished with his summer tour.

"I will be talking to them about that," McCartney told the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles.

"I don't think it's great. I do think it is a horrendous violation of privacy, and I do think it's been going on a long time, and I do think more people than we know knew about it. But I think I should just listen and hear what the facts are before I comment," he said.

McCartney is the latest celebrity to be dragged into Britain's phone hacking scandal, which centers on allegations that journalists routinely eavesdropped on private phone messages, bribed police officers for tips and illegally obtained confidential information for stories.

Until recently the scandal was largely been limited to the British arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, but an allegation made Wednesday by McCartney's former wife Heather Mills implicates the Trinity Mirror PLC group of newspapers, and CNN celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan, who once edited the group's flagship Daily Mirror tabloid.

Mills' allegation, made Wednesday in an interview with the BBC, was that a senior Mirror journalist admitted to her that his paper had been spying on her messages. While the broadcaster said that the unidentified man was not Piers Morgan, the former model's allegation echoes a claim Morgan himself made back in 2006 — a few months after the couple began divorce proceedings.

In an article published by the Daily Mail, Morgan said that he had been played a tape of a message McCartney had left on Mills' cell phone in the wake of one of their fights.

"It was heartbreaking," Morgan wrote. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone."

Questions over how Piers Morgan came to hear such a message have led several British lawmakers to call on him to return to the U.K. and explain himself.

Morgan has so far not offered comment on his article, although he did describe Mills' allegation as unsubstantiated and noted that the judge in the couple's divorce case had cast aspersions on her credibility.

He has repeatedly denied having ever ordered anyone to spy on others' voicemails, while his former newspaper group has insisted that it's journalists obey the law.

Mills' office on Thursday declined to elaborate on what she told the BBC, but said that the 43-year-old "looks forward to receiving Piers Morgan's answer as to how he knew the content of her private voicemail messages."

Several British parliamentarians have also said that Morgan has questions to answer — among them Conservative legislator Therese Coffey.

"I think it would help everybody, including himself and this investigation, if he was able to say more about why he wrote what he did in 2006," Coffey told the BBC Wednesday.

Morgan's publicist, Meghan McPartland, said that as far as she knew the CNN star — who is spending his summer working as a judge on "America's Got Talent" — was not returning to England to answer questions.

Morgan himself made light of the calls on his Twitter feed, saying he found it "so heartwarming that everyone in U.K.'s missing me so much they want me to come home."

In a separate development, the publisher of Britain's Daily Mail newspaper announced late Thursday that it was reviewing its editorial procedures. No reason for the review was given, but Morgan is one of many media veterans who've claimed that phone hacking and other shady practices were common across Britain's newspaper industry.

A similar review is already under way at the Mirror.

Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, and London's free Metro newspaper, said in a terse statement that Liz Hartley, the company's head of editorial legal services, would be among those working on the review.

Few other details were revealed, and Hartley did not return emails seeking further information.

___

Frazier Moore and Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles and David Stringer and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

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McCartney recalls fear after 9/11, says music heals (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Paul McCartney on Thursday recalled the shock and fear that engulfed New York in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks and what he called the magical power of music in helping to heal those wounds.

Speaking ahead of the television broadcast of his 9/11 documentary "The Love We Make", the former Beatle said that the concert he helped organize after the attacks was one of the most worthwhile moments of his career.

Shot in black and white, "The Love We Make" chronicles McCartney's personal journey in the devastated city immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center, and preparations for the "Concert for 9/11" six weeks later.

It will be broadcast on cable channel Showtime on September 10 as part of a slew of U.S. television programs marking the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

"The whole mood of the world, of America and New York had changed. There was fear in the air and I had never experienced that in New York," McCartney told television journalists gathered in Los Angeles for a bi-annual meeting of critics.

McCartney said he organized the concert in a bid to help New York let out the fear. "We were emerging from the fearfulness of the immediate impact, and now you were seeing the emotion releasing through music -- it's one of the reasons I am in music."

"It was a great feeling. We actually felt like we were doing a bit of good," he said of the concert.

McCartney was on a plane on the tarmac in New York on the morning of September 11, 2001 which was grounded when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers. He spent the next few days stranded on Long Island and immediately came up with the idea of staging a concert for the city.

McCartney said he was a big believer in the transformative powers of music. "I have come to the conclusion that it is magical...One of the things I am most proud of is that I have lucked out and am in a profession like this that can help heal and help people get in touch with their emotions."

The documentary features footage of McCartney rehearsing for the concert, talking with New Yorkers on city streets and backstage. The film features the likes of David Bowie, Mick Jagger, former President Bill Clinton, Leonardo DiCaprio and many others.

McCartney said he had done nothing with the original footage for years, until the 10th anniversary of 9/11 began to loom. "The documentary was reawakened by the anniversary," he said.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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McCartney ex-wife: Mirror journalist hacked my phone (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Heather Mills was quoted on Wednesday as saying a journalist at British publisher Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, had hacked her phone before she was married to former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.

The accusation widens a scandal over phone hacking by British newspapers that has so far center on titles owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, with the furor also threatening to embroil U.S. talk show host Piers Morgan.

The BBC said the messages were left by McCartney, whom Mills married in 2002. The couple separated four years later.

Mills said the journalist had confronted her with details of sensitive messages left on her phone.

"He started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine, and...I'd wondered why they had already been heard, listened to, when it says 'heard messages'," Mills told the BBC.

The BBC said the journalist worked at the Mirror group, although Mills does not mention the journalist's employers in the audio clip provided by the BBC.

"I said you've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story, because they were obviously very private conversations about issues we were having as a couple, I said then I'll go to the police," she added.

She went on to say the journalist admitted hacking her phone and agreed not to use a story based on the messages.

"All of our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct," said Nick Fullagar, Trinity Mirror's director of corporate communications, referring to Britain's Press Complaints Commission industry watchdog.

PIERS MORGAN

Allegations of phone hacking at the News of World Sunday newspaper, owned by News Corp's British newspaper arm News International, last month prompted the newspaper's closure and the resignation of News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

CNN talk show host Morgan, who once edited the News of the World and later the Daily Mirror until 2004, has repeatedly denied any role in the phone hacking scandal.

In a 2006 article for Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, Morgan said he had listened to one of Mills' phone messages.

"Stories soon emerged that the marriage was in trouble - at one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone," he wrote.

The BBC said Morgan was not the journalist who had contacted Mills with details of her phone messages.

Morgan said in a statement the BBC had confirmed to him that the journalist, whom Morgan refers to as a senior executive, was not employed by the Daily Mirror. He also said he had no knowledge of conversations any other executive at Trinity Mirror may have had with Mills.

"Heather Mills has made unsubstantiated claims about a conversation she may or may not have had with a senior executive from a Trinity Mirror newspaper in 2001," he said, describing her claims as "somewhat extravagant."

"To reiterate, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone," he added.

Mark Lewis, lawyer for victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, on Monday confirmed that he had instructions to take legal action against Trinity Mirror on behalf of other unnamed phone hacking victims.

(Additional reporting by Olesya Dmitracova and Georgina Prodhan)

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