pension333: Phone hacking: Trinity Mirror drawn into the spotlight by Morgan

Trinity Mirror's announcement last week that it is staging "a review of editorial controls and procedures" may prove as ineffective a response to phone hacking allegations as the various infamous internal inquiries at News International.

The publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mirror and The People is being drawn ineluctably into the affair, as today's headlines and stories illustrate.

Though the Sunday Times cannot, perhaps, be said to be entirely impartial, its piece about "three or four" looming legal actions against Trinity titles is well sourced.

The Independent on Sunday's article, Now Trinity Mirror feels the hacking heat, is based around allegations about Piers Morgan, who edited the Daily Mirror for nine years until 2004.

The Sunday Telegraph's diary also carries an item suggesting that Nancy Dell'Olio is considering legal action against Morgan, citing the paper's revelations about her relationship with the former England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson.

The Sindy's piece reports that two of Trinity's biggest investors, Standard Life and Aviva, "want to know more" from the company's chief executive Sly Bailey and "are understood to be making their views known" to chairman Sir Ian Gibson.

It claims the pressure on Trinity is intensifying because of a posting by Guido Fawkes on Friday that Mirror group paid �442,878 to a private investigator during Morgan's editorship.

There is no suggestion that the payments concerned phone hacking (or any illegal activity), but the company will need to get on to the front foot if it is to distance itself from the new swirl of speculation about its former news-gathering practices.

Bailey was delighted to have fired Morgan in 2004 (over publishing faked pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners) in the belief that he had become "a monster."

By that, she meant he had become far too big for his boots, saying and doing exactly as he liked without apparent regard for her and the Trinity board.

I imagine it has therefore displeased her greatly that her company - already suffering from severe financial strains - has been dragged into the hacking affair by virtue of Morgan's various boastful statements in the past about hacking (here and here and here).

And Guido has added another from Morgan's book, The Insider, by noting this April 2000 diary entry:

"I got back to the office to learn that Kate Winslet, having indicated she would come to our Pride of Britain awards tomorrow, is now saying she can't.
Someone had got hold of her mobile number ? I never like to ask how ? so I rang her... 'Hello,' she said, sounding a bit taken aback. 'How did you get my number? I've only just changed it. You've got to tell me, please, I am so worried now.'"

He never liked to ask! It's a further example of his seemingly cavalier attitude towards the dark arts, as I pointed out in my posting on Friday.

Despite his protestations of innocence from his new berth at CNN, he has not explained his insouciant attitude towards hacking prior to the recent revelations.

CNN is supporting him just now, but, as James Robinson reported, his star at the US news channel is no longer in the ascendant.

As for Trinity, with its share price at 44p, it needs to convince nervous investors that the sales benefits its Sunday Mirror is enjoying in the absence of the News of the World will lead to improved ad revenue and a path towards greater stability at its national division.

It has tried to calm fears that it will be dragged down into the hacking mire by issuing a statement saying that its journalists "work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct."

One major investor, Schroder Investment Management, recently sold 4.5m shares, reducing its stake to 15.6%, though that is unlikely to have had anything at all to do with hacking.

According to a Sunday Telegraph story, Trinity is planning to restore its fortunes by, once again, cutting costs - and more jobs, including "a large number" of journalists.

The group, which is due to report its half-year results on 12 August, is said to recognise that "significantly increased cuts" are necessary.