MEDIA HEADLINER: How Daily Mirror's Morgan will keep the tits and arse at bay - Can Morgan maintain the tabloid's claims to greater class, Anna Griffiths asks.(Brief Article)

Interviewing Piers Morgan is rather like taking an express train.

But compared with four or five years ago, the ride has fewer comic bumps and turns and instead steams through stations with a bit more thought and a little less irreverence.

But with seven years as the editor at the Daily Mirror, Morgan is still more than capable of kicking up controversy. His recent slashing of the paper's price, and public sparring with The Sun's editor, David Yelland, prompted the media mogul Rupert Murdoch to declare that he needs reining in.

Loved by the media for his 'good quote', the irony of his recent appearance in an episode of BBC1's My Worst Week, which looks at a celebrity's fall from grace, is not lost on Morgan. His worst week would be the one in 2000 when the Viglen shares scandal broke, when he was accused of being a main player in an insider-dealing ring involving his City Slickers journalists. But Trinity Mirror's board stood behind its golden boy and Morgan escaped with a stern dressing down from the PCC. Recent reports that the investigation is continuing, however, suggest this shadow still hovers over Morgan.

He is typically diffident about the affair. 'I might die never knowing if I'm a crook or not. For a couple of months I found it very hard because the idea that I was branded as a crook wasn't very palatable. But two and a half years later I either let it dominate my every waking moment, or I forget about it.'

It would seem that his waking moments, for now, are dominated by thoughts of the brave new world he believes his tabloid is carving out in the newspaper market. Officially unveiled in April with the rebranding of The Mirror back to its old name, the Daily Mirror, it ditched its 'tacky' red masthead and declared a more serious tone in its news agenda, while reinstating heavyweight columnists such as John Pilger.

Morgan has an ambitious game plan, a long-term strategy where greater news values will help revitalise the paper through attracting a younger, more dynamic readership. With a pounds 20 million war chest to support these changes, the paper slashed its price by 10p for a month before reinstating the full price in half of the country in May. The Sun responded by cutting its price by 10p.