Bainbridge College
BBC Interviews Wynton Hall for Documentary
By by Marcía O. McRae, Communications Director
Jul 31, 2008, 18:07

Bestselling author Wynton Hall, assistant professor of speech communication at Bainbridge College, flew to Washington, DC, to film an interview July 10.  The interview is for an upcoming documentary that will air across Europe on the British Broadcasting Corp. television channel. The BBC is the world’s largest broadcasting corporation.

The TV special, expected to air in September, focuses on the relationship between Hollywood and the American presidency.  Hall, who is also a visiting fellow at Stanford University, is regarded as a top scholar on presidential campaigns and communication. He is the author and co-author of several books and articles on the subject and is no stranger to requests from international media.

“The BBC producers interviewed an impressive collection of international scholars. I was humbled by the interview request,” said Hall, who was interviewed earlier this year by a political reporter from Poland’s largest daily newspaper for Hall’s expert opinion on the U.S. presidential race and the outcome of the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary.

The BBC reporters were especially interested in his views regarding Hollywood actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan. Having written books with two members of President Reagan’s inner circle, Professor Hall offered the TV documentary an insider’s view of how Reagan’s Hollywood training influenced the Reagan presidential communications.

“President Reagan’s acting skills provided him with an enormous advantage, particularly in an age of the so-called ‘televised presidency,’” said Hall. “A reporter once asked Reagan how an actor could be a president, and Reagan replied, ‘How can a president not be an actor?’”

Hall’s work on the presidency is prolific. He has served on the eight-person National Task Force on the Presidency and Public Opinion along with some of the nation's top presidential scholars. His work has been published in USA Today, The New York Times, Washington Times, Presidential Studies Quarterly and numerous other publications.

As a professional speechwriter and communication consultant, his clients have included Fortune 500 companies, national TV celebrities, college presidents, U.S. senators, and NCAA Hall of Fame college coaches. Earlier this year he was a featured speaker for the Dow Jones VentureOne Summit attended by more than 350 persons.

Hall has taught at BC since 2002 including classes in Thomasville. He earned his master’s degree in speech communication from Texas A&M University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Florida.