Did Piers Morgan Admit to Phone Hacking?

Did Piers Morgan sanction a bit of phone hacking while in charge of the Daily Mirror? The CNN host has been denying it all week, after a British lawmaker accused him of it. But now, audio has surfaced online of a 2009 radio interview in which Morgan seems to admit to doing just that, the Telegraph reports. In the clip, first reported by the “Guido Fawkes” blog and the Daily Beast, Morgan is asked how he felt about “down-in-the-gutter” journalism tactics like phone hacking.

“To be honest … not a lot of that went on,” Morgan replied. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.” Today Morgan told Mediaite that the comments were just “a general observation about tabloid newspaper reporters,” and not an admission of phone hacking specifically. (More Piers Morgan stories.)