Hugh Grant U.K. TV Documentary Includes Piers Morgan Phone Hacking Comments (Video) 8:00 AM PST 11/28/2012 by George Szalai (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)

Previously unseen footage of the CNN host and then-tabloid editor saying "a spate of stories" came out "because of mobile phones" could reignite an old debate.

LONDON - A Hugh Grant TV documentary set to air in the U.K. Wednesday night includes previously unseen 2003 footage of CNN host Piers Morgan telling British singer Charlotte Church about news stories that emerged thanks to phone hacking.

Channel 4, which will air Hugh Grant: Taking on the Tabloids at 8 p.m. London time, posted a video clip of the footage on YouTube Wednesday. It could reignite the debate about former Daily Mirror editor Morgan and his knowledge about hacking.

Channel 4 said Church's chat with Morgan was filmed when singer was 17 and preparing to address a crowd about a potential privacy law to protect under-18-year-olds.

During the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics and standards in the U.K., Morgan denied any involvement in hacking or having any reason to believe that it may have been used during his time at the Daily Mirror. As Channel 4 put it: "Piers Morgan has always said that he knew phone hacking existed, and he still maintains that he never knowingly used it."

Earlier this year, BBC host Jeremy Paxman told the Leveson Inquiry that Morgan once described how hacking works during a lunch event.



READ MORE: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hugh-grant-uk-tv-documentary-395005


Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai

Hugh Grant documentary to air night before Leveson report published (GUARDIAN)

Ben Dowell
guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 November 2012 13.40 EST

A 60-minute documentary called Hugh Grant: Taking on the Tabloids will show at an as yet unspecified time on Wednesday Photograph: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Hugh Grant's Channel 4 documentary following the actor's campaign for stricter press regulation has been parachuted into the schedule on Wednesday night – on the eve of the publication of the Leveson report.

The 60-minute programme, called Hugh Grant: Taking on the Tabloids, is to air at 8pm on the network on the evening of 28 November, in a gesture that anti-regulation campaigners will interpret as provocative.

Taking on the Tabloids is an observational documentary following Grant campaigning for stricter press regulation in recent weeks, including interviews with those for and against such a move.

Interviews for the documentary are still being filmed, with the programme unlikely to be finished until close to transmission.

But it is understood that Channel 4 and the independent production company making the documentary – Roger Graef's Films of Record – are making what they describe as an "extremely balanced programme", which includes the views of the Hacked Off campaign for stricter press regulation – of which Grant is a director – as well as the views of opponents who regard such a move as a threat to freedom of speech.

Lord Hunt, the Press Complaints Commission chairman who favours a revamped version of self-regulation as a solution to the concerns about press activity, is understood to have been interviewed at length by the producers.

The film includes a scene relating to Conservative MP Alun Cairns's complaint about it: he told the Daily Mail he believed the documentary was likely to be biased. A sequence has been shot in which Grant reads the Mail's story out to camera, according to Hacked Off sources.

READ MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/23/hugh-grant-documentary-leveson-balance