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Interview With Laura Reis, Eric Dezenhall

Aired November 10, 2003 - 14:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now to talk about the latest rash of TV based movies on real people, the controversies that ensue, branding analyst Laura Reis. She is right with me. And Eric Dezenhall who is the president of Nichols-Dezenhall Communications in Washington. The spin team is reunited. Good to have you both here.
LAURA REIS, BRANDING ANALYST: Good to be back.

O'BRIEN: All right. I tell you what, before we get into the Lynch-Smart episode last night, I think we should discuss the Reagan issue first.

Normally I would go ladies, first, but Eric actually worked in the Reagan administration. The whole thing has left a bitter taste in a lot of mouths in the wake of all of this. Just try to give us a sense, from your perspective, especially, since you worked for Ronald Reagan's administration, why this whole thing became so explosive.

ERIC DEZENHALL, PRESIDENT, NICHOLS-DEZENHALL COMMUNICATIONS: Whenever you take the concept of Barbra Streisand and you put her next to the Reagan legacy, you have the fuse reaching out for the fire. And even though Barbra Streisand, it was her husband who starred in the movie and she may have had nothing to do with it, when you combine Streisand with CBS, which people believe for many years has a liberal bias, and then you throw on top of it a fire-breathing Nancy Reagan and a president who doesn't care about people suffering from AIDS or at least that's what the portrayal is, you have a world war.

The fact is that liberals and conservatives, what they have in common is they believe in free speech provided that the free speech doesn't belong to the other guy. And so the objective is to shut the other guy down, no matter how you can. And this Reagan movie left CBS very, very vulnerable, especially with the Streisand connection.

O'BRIEN: So the people who shut this one down get spin team comes up for sure man managing to get it off the network. CBS looks pretty bad.

REIS: It does look bad. It was doomed from the start. They made the worst casting decision ever by choosing James Brolin to portray Ronald Reagan. They should have chosen an unknown, a guy who never voted in his life to portray Ronald Reagan. It was still going to be controversial.

But really what killed this thing are the conservative talk show hosts. They did a wonderful job of rallying their viewers, using their platforms of television, radio and of the Internet to really make a case about this.

They had a strong case because of James Brolin and the fact that Reagan is still alive and he's ailing and seen as a very sad figure and people feel for that.

O'BRIEN: Let's move on from that one, because that one is getting to be old news.

The Smart-Lynch stories. Hollywood, of course -- the issue here isn't so much what is accurate or not. The question is who kind of seizes control of the story. The case of the Smart story, the family cooperated. And the case of Lynch, she did not cooperate.

I'm curious, Eric, what is the best strategy? If some poor person ends up caught up in some sort of event like this, it seems first of all that they are very sophisticated, very savvy, very quickly, and they do everything they can to make sure they stay ahead of their own story. What's the best way to go about that?

DEZENHALL: Well, first of all, I think that these folks recognize that they have a limited life span of interest in the subject matter. And I think that somebody like Jessica Lynch or the Elizabeth Smart family, they have to exploit that window.

And one of the things these stories have is they have scary villains, vulnerable victims and brave heroes. So the real person or concept in charge of the story is what is the most saleable version of the story? Ultimately, everything gravitates toward what is the sexiest story and whether or not it is your intention to go quietly in the night or make money off of it. And what most people decide in this day and age is to make money off of it.

That's why you have the sexiest version conceivable is what ends up on the air. That's what brings in viewers. And in the Elizabeth Smart case, they have a book coming out in a few weeks. All of this is really generated to hype the book and sell.

O'BRIEN: Laura, bling-bling equals sing-sing.

REIS: It's kind of a tragedy these people end up selling their stories for huge amount of money and in the end can damage their credibility. The Jessica Lynch story, in particular, you know, because we don't -- the details are just coming out, the fact that maybe she wasn't a hero, maybe she wasn't sexually assaulted and certainly she did brave things. But the stories are that were initially coming out to the stories that are coming out now are quite different.

Really it's a problem with addressing those. You need drama to get a very successful show. And sometimes they use a lot of creative license. I think more compelling are the real stories from the real people. The interviews I think are doing much better than these documdramas which take a long time to produce, a lot of money, and you're locked into a very specific telling of the story, which in subsequent months can come out to not be true.

O'BRIEN: Stick with the news department, not the entertainment department would be your advice. Eric, do you go along with that?

DEZENHALL: I think that's pretty much the case. Where you get into trouble is something like the Reagan documentary. You basically don't have a story if it's just the love story between Ronald and Nancy. What is a story is the specter of a president insensitive to AIDS, the specter of a first lady listen to astrologers, the specter of a young soldier getting raped.

The truth is always changed. And also with Elizabeth Smart the very fear that a child could be kidnapped from her home and sexually assaulted, everything tends to gravitate toward this direction because there's not one of us that doesn't find that resonate, whether it's true or not.

(CROSSTALK)

REIS: I think the Smarts did a great thing cooperating with the media, with the movie, with the TV doing all those things. And Jessica not cooperating I think is looking bad. The million dollars price tag on her story is not going to do her well for the reputation.

O'BRIEN: All right, folks. Spin team, always appreciate it. Laura Reis, Eric Dezenhall, always a pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 10, 2003 - 14:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now to talk about the latest rash of TV based movies on real people, the controversies that ensue, branding analyst Laura Reis. She is right with me. And Eric Dezenhall who is the president of Nichols-Dezenhall Communications in Washington. The spin team is reunited. Good to have you both here.
LAURA REIS, BRANDING ANALYST: Good to be back.

O'BRIEN: All right. I tell you what, before we get into the Lynch-Smart episode last night, I think we should discuss the Reagan issue first.

Normally I would go ladies, first, but Eric actually worked in the Reagan administration. The whole thing has left a bitter taste in a lot of mouths in the wake of all of this. Just try to give us a sense, from your perspective, especially, since you worked for Ronald Reagan's administration, why this whole thing became so explosive.

ERIC DEZENHALL, PRESIDENT, NICHOLS-DEZENHALL COMMUNICATIONS: Whenever you take the concept of Barbra Streisand and you put her next to the Reagan legacy, you have the fuse reaching out for the fire. And even though Barbra Streisand, it was her husband who starred in the movie and she may have had nothing to do with it, when you combine Streisand with CBS, which people believe for many years has a liberal bias, and then you throw on top of it a fire-breathing Nancy Reagan and a president who doesn't care about people suffering from AIDS or at least that's what the portrayal is, you have a world war.

The fact is that liberals and conservatives, what they have in common is they believe in free speech provided that the free speech doesn't belong to the other guy. And so the objective is to shut the other guy down, no matter how you can. And this Reagan movie left CBS very, very vulnerable, especially with the Streisand connection.

O'BRIEN: So the people who shut this one down get spin team comes up for sure man managing to get it off the network. CBS looks pretty bad.

REIS: It does look bad. It was doomed from the start. They made the worst casting decision ever by choosing James Brolin to portray Ronald Reagan. They should have chosen an unknown, a guy who never voted in his life to portray Ronald Reagan. It was still going to be controversial.

But really what killed this thing are the conservative talk show hosts. They did a wonderful job of rallying their viewers, using their platforms of television, radio and of the Internet to really make a case about this.

They had a strong case because of James Brolin and the fact that Reagan is still alive and he's ailing and seen as a very sad figure and people feel for that.

O'BRIEN: Let's move on from that one, because that one is getting to be old news.

The Smart-Lynch stories. Hollywood, of course -- the issue here isn't so much what is accurate or not. The question is who kind of seizes control of the story. The case of the Smart story, the family cooperated. And the case of Lynch, she did not cooperate.

I'm curious, Eric, what is the best strategy? If some poor person ends up caught up in some sort of event like this, it seems first of all that they are very sophisticated, very savvy, very quickly, and they do everything they can to make sure they stay ahead of their own story. What's the best way to go about that?

DEZENHALL: Well, first of all, I think that these folks recognize that they have a limited life span of interest in the subject matter. And I think that somebody like Jessica Lynch or the Elizabeth Smart family, they have to exploit that window.

And one of the things these stories have is they have scary villains, vulnerable victims and brave heroes. So the real person or concept in charge of the story is what is the most saleable version of the story? Ultimately, everything gravitates toward what is the sexiest story and whether or not it is your intention to go quietly in the night or make money off of it. And what most people decide in this day and age is to make money off of it.

That's why you have the sexiest version conceivable is what ends up on the air. That's what brings in viewers. And in the Elizabeth Smart case, they have a book coming out in a few weeks. All of this is really generated to hype the book and sell.

O'BRIEN: Laura, bling-bling equals sing-sing.

REIS: It's kind of a tragedy these people end up selling their stories for huge amount of money and in the end can damage their credibility. The Jessica Lynch story, in particular, you know, because we don't -- the details are just coming out, the fact that maybe she wasn't a hero, maybe she wasn't sexually assaulted and certainly she did brave things. But the stories are that were initially coming out to the stories that are coming out now are quite different.

Really it's a problem with addressing those. You need drama to get a very successful show. And sometimes they use a lot of creative license. I think more compelling are the real stories from the real people. The interviews I think are doing much better than these documdramas which take a long time to produce, a lot of money, and you're locked into a very specific telling of the story, which in subsequent months can come out to not be true.

O'BRIEN: Stick with the news department, not the entertainment department would be your advice. Eric, do you go along with that?

DEZENHALL: I think that's pretty much the case. Where you get into trouble is something like the Reagan documentary. You basically don't have a story if it's just the love story between Ronald and Nancy. What is a story is the specter of a president insensitive to AIDS, the specter of a first lady listen to astrologers, the specter of a young soldier getting raped.

The truth is always changed. And also with Elizabeth Smart the very fear that a child could be kidnapped from her home and sexually assaulted, everything tends to gravitate toward this direction because there's not one of us that doesn't find that resonate, whether it's true or not.

(CROSSTALK)

REIS: I think the Smarts did a great thing cooperating with the media, with the movie, with the TV doing all those things. And Jessica not cooperating I think is looking bad. The million dollars price tag on her story is not going to do her well for the reputation.

O'BRIEN: All right, folks. Spin team, always appreciate it. Laura Reis, Eric Dezenhall, always a pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com