You’ve got to love the Brits — for many reasons I won’t delve into for the sake of time — but in particular for their ability to dryly poke fun at themselves in the face of the biggest faux pas.
If you’ve been following the Top Gear scandal culminating in the legendary Jeremy Clarkson’s contract not being renewed, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s been just begging for a pithy crisis comms op-ed. Piers Morgan provided just that in a highly entertaining but also un-ironically honest and salient open letter to Jeremy in The Daily Mail.
The two were longtime “frenemies” having somewhat famously been in a 10-year feud sparked by Morgan (then the editor of The Daily Mirror) publishing compromising photos of Clarkson with a woman who was not his wife. Things came to a dramatic head when Clarkson punched Morgan at the National Press Awards in 2004, and several vitriolic episodes followed in the years since. In his open letter, however, Piers Morgan divulges that they finally came to a truce last summer.
With the backstory in mind, Morgan’s column provides equal parts sincere advice and sardonic wit. The much-maligned Morgan half-jokes: “Speaking as something of an expert in the genre of being removed from high profile media jobs, I feel uniquely qualified to offer some advice.” But behind the (sometimes slightly brutal) barbs at Clarkson lies a good amount of genuine and salient advice gleaned from Morgan’s own experiences such as his mortifying dismissal from CNN, when his attempt to fill Larry King’s shoes was, inescapably, a total failure. I highly recommend reading the whole list but among his disarmingly sincere suggestions, Morgan advises:
And my personal favorite:
I couldn’t help but crack a smile several times at the fun Morgan pokes at himself and the very publicly embarrassing situations he’s found himself in, and I admired the sensible, sound advice he proffered.
In closing, Morgan reminds Clarkson that while being sacked is awful (he can’t help rather acerbically comparing it to the tragedy of the departure of Zayn from boy band One Direction), there are far more terrible things happening in the world, like the truly terrible Germanwings crash resulting in the deaths of all 150 on board. The fact that he chose an open letter to deliver his words of wisdom is a reminder that old habits die hard for the previously publicly feuding duo, but try as he might, Morgan can’t quite conceal a little bit of empathy.
(Photo: “Jeremy Clarkson” by flickr user Daniel Gorecki via Attribution 2.0 License)
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