http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3716151.stm
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been sacked after the newspaper conceded photos of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake.
The newspaper released a statement saying: The Daily Mirror published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
However there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax.
The Daily Mirror therefore apologises unreservedly for publishing the pictures and deeply regrets the reputational damage done to the QLR and the Army in Iraq.
My views on this are a bit complex. On one hand publishing those pictures was a very stupid mistake, especially as they never looked remotely real. On the other hand, I think it is the job of journalists to challenge the establishment and that's only going to happen if they are willing to take risks. It worries me that we seem to setting a precedent in the UK where journalists resign for getting things wrong whereas politicians just shrug accusations off.
Publishing those pictures - and so unfairly ruining the reputation of British tropps - will undoubtedly have made their already difficult job in Iraq much harder. But I would rather that than the alternative, where accusations would have been suppressed because the media was so worried about getting it wrong. I also find it hypocritical that we slam inaccuracy in political journalism, but tolerate it when papers print utter rubbish about celebrity, sport and science.
On a more personal note, I can't stand Piers Morgan, but at least he manages to be brash, arrogant and popularist without being reactionary and right wing. In that sense he was the perfect Mirror editor and one it will find very hard to replace.
Rich.
