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Britain's Daily Mail website hires Piers Morgan as U.S. editor-at-large

Television host Piers Morgan hosts a conversation titled "Communication by Design: Inspirational Change" during the final day of the Clinton Global Initiative 2012 (CGI) in New York September 25, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Burton

By Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - MailOnline, the website of Britain's Daily Mail tabloid, has hired Piers Morgan as its U.S. editor-at-large, signing the outspoken journalist to the most visited, and often controversial, English-language newspaper website. MailOnline, owned by Daily Mail and General Trust and known for its articles and photographs of celebrities, said on Tuesday that Morgan would write several times a week and would start immediately. The MailOnline website, which Morgan called "an addictive pleasure", is visited by 180 million people every month, including 60 million in the United States. "As editor-at-large (U.S.) I plan on breaking down the biggest stories that matter to Americans and analysing them in a way that will generate discussion and create debate," he said in a MailOnline story on Tuesday. Morgan, 49, said on Twitter this month that he was leaving CNN, six months after the network cancelled the "Piers Morgan Live" show he had presented for three years. He acknowledged in a New York Times interview in February that as a Brit he did not always connect with American audiences He has also been questioned by British police in connection with allegations of phone-hacking at the Daily Mirror tabloid he used to edit. He has always denied any involvement in hacking. Britain's newspaper industry was rocked in 2011 by the closure of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sunday tabloid News of the World after revelations some of its staff had regularly hacked into phones to generate front page scoops. Morgan's former employer Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror, last week admitted liability over hacking the phones of four people. He also writes for MailOnline's sister publication, The Mail on Sunday, and presents an interview programme on British commercial channel ITV. (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Susan Thomas)