Exclusive Celebrity Interview - April 5, 2005
Dan Raviv
CBS News Correspondent & Best-selling Author
StockArena Screen Name: ComicWarsAuthor
Click here to view Dan Raviv's books on Amazon.com
 For more than three decades, Dan Raviv has served the public trust as a
broadcaster, helping to shape perceptions of some of the most important events
the world has seen in that period. The veteran newsman was a longtime foreign
correspondent for the radio and television arms of CBS News, and he works today
as the radio network’s Washington-based National Correspondent. He was at the
heart of the radio coverage of September 11, and has been a balanced voice on
the scene of many other events of profound human importance over the years. He
is also a best-selling author, most recently hitting the charts with his
insightful Comic Wars , in which he sifted through the wreckage of a
post-bankruptcy Marvel Comics. He has continued to follow Marvel since
completing the original book, and in fact recently released an updated
paperback version of the account, which is a valuable resource for investors
looking to follow today’s far healthier Marvel Enterprises Inc. His thorough
knowledge of the company is often on display when he shares the occasional
nugget on StockArena’s Marvel (MVL) arena
under the screen name ComicWarsAuthor.
His wide range of personal and professional experiences have helped him build a
deep well of fascinating stories and insights, some of which he provided in a
recent question and answer session with StockArena.
StockArena: Your various roles for CBS News have put you in close proximity
to some of the most important events in recent history. When you are so close
to things you know are going to have long-term repercussions, is it difficult
to get sufficient perspective on them to communicate to your audience what is
going on?
Dan Raviv: I love being a news reporter because I do often get a front-row seat
as history is made. My primary job, for CBS News, on both radio and TV, is to
“bring the audience to the scene.” I am your eyes, and I try to share the
excitement, the details of what the event looks and sounds like, and also why
it is important. For that last part – getting some perspective – I rely on the
reading I’ve done, on my college education at Harvard, and by now quite a lot
of real-life experience. Perhaps I don’t always succeed, but I’m always trying
to combine all those factors: the immediate on the spot details with some
background info that might thrill you with why this event is something special.
I’ve had the pleasure of doing that, say, at Pope John Paul II’s open-air
masses for millions of Catholics in Guatemala or Ireland or Nigeria. I’ve also
had the responsibility of sharing sad experiences, for instance walking through
the debris of the Pan Am jumbo jet blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland.
How are the challenges of focusing on domestic news different than those
you faced as a foreign correspondent?
Events in the United States are easier to report on radio and TV because the
audience is already familiar with the issues and the main players. When
reporting from Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Russia and other foreign
locations, I always have felt I have to slip in the background details – how
Israel is just south of Lebanon, how the PLO had its headquarters there, or how
Gorbachev and Yeltsin were presiding over the end of a Communist system that
began in 1917. Doing foreign news – which I love, as I adore travel and using
many languages – is much more a chance to educate. Since Americans don’t hear
enough about developments overseas, I believe it is important to make these
foreign stories as interesting and exciting as possible.
You have spent a lot of time outside the U.S., much of it in countries
plagued by sizable measures of internal discord. How has life in those
environments made you perceive the divisiveness that is so often cited these
days as a major problem in this country?
Your question seems to be pushing me toward stating a truism: Compared with
many foreign lands, we in America are living in safety, luxury, unity, and
comity. (I have never said that last word on the air – Never use language in a
radio or TV news report that makes your listeners grab their dictionaries!) The
world is much more complex than can be summed up by any truism. On one hand,
each country has its own politics, its own divisive issues, and sometimes a
complete inability by government to command respect and power that keep a lid
on the conflicts. On the other hand, we are interlinked more than ever: Unrest
in an oil-producing country can make us all pay more for our gasoline and home
heating fuel. The United States has divisions along many fault lines – not just
Republicans vs. Democrats (where the differences are not as sharp or violent as
are party divisions in many other nations) – but the media, our educational
systems, and wide use of the internet should bridge a lot of the differences.
People of good will can reduce violence and instead turn to dialogue, so we all
can be winners.
What are the appeals and drawbacks of working in radio after having spent
so many years putting together news for a television audience?
I have been with CBS since 1974 – in Boston, New York, Tel Aviv, London, Miami,
and now Washington – and in fact have done most of my reporting on the radio. I
love both radio and TV, but indeed the work itself is different. We have CBS
Radio stations all over the country broadcasting “news and talk” 24 hours a
day, so they always have an appetite for the latest developments. On TV we’re
generally working for the one big evening report, or the major morning report
on The Early Show. On the radio, we do the same story dozens of times, in
dozens of ways, covering various angles and describing what happened just using
words and voices. No pictures! It’s quite a challenge, but I like to think of
radio as “a medium of the imagination.” I will do my best to describe what I
just saw, or what I just learned; and hopefully I have enough credibility that
the audience wants to hear it from me! On TV, often we have to be careful that
our words – and a lot of information – don’t get in the way of fantastic,
on-the-spot pictures.
Your book Comic Wars made a name for you as an expert on the
business of Marvel Enterprises, and as a result you have occasionally been
enlisted to analyze the company’s news for various financial programs. When you
set out to write the book, did you think the company you were writing about
would hang around as such a significant ongoing element of your life?
Writing Comic Wars was quite a detour on my career path, but it has
been quite an educational detour. I have been a CBS broadcaster since 1974, and
fifteen years later I took on my additional identity as an author. I co-wrote
four books about the Middle East, Israel, and espionage. Then in 2000 I started
hearing about this amazing takeover battle for a comic book company. I didn’t
think Marvel’s fate would fascinate me, but after meeting all the people
involved in the fight I was hooked! Once you’re hooked, and especially after
you have spent more than a year writing a book – and later updating the story
for the paperback (in 2004) – you don’t easily get off that hook. In fact, I
don’t really want to! Marvel Enterprises continues to be a turnaround story and
a great comeback from bankruptcy. True, the stock – after a meteoric rise after
the first X-Men movie – has been pretty flat; but we all know that Wall Street
is often either too fast or too slow to recognize success stories.
Were you interested in Marvel when you were growing up, or did a specific
element of the company’s story draw you in as an adult?
Well, I had both Marvel and DC comics as a kid, and I was aware of Stan Lee and
his corny sense of humor – which I still love! – but until 2000 I never gave a
thought to how those businesses were run. I’m glad now that I found out!
Some of the people who take the con to your pro on those financial shows
appear to be less informed than you regarding the company’s fundamental
business model. Given that both of you are there to represent a side of the
debate, how do you handle a circumstance in which you perceive your opposite
number to be misrepresenting the reality of a situation?
Your question probably stems from seeing me debate one particular brokerage
analyst about Marvel Enterprises on CNBC – and more than once! Stockholders who
continue to be bullish about MVL figure that that guy must have been “working
with the shorts,” or with hedge funds that have bet against Marvel. I don’t
know that for a fact, and I suppose that an honest analyst could feel that
Spider-Man will run out of steam (as a profitable, licensable character) or
that Fantastic Four won’t be wonderfully fantastic. Personally, my gut feeling
is that those Marvel characters – and many, many others – will continue to be
popular and valuable on pajamas, lunchboxes, in electronic games, in movies,
and in the years to come on TV. Even now, as I answer your questions, Marvel
has employees pushing into new licensing areas, daring to demand even higher
upfront payments and royalty percentages that continue to rise. And gee, this
is a $2 billion market cap company with no debt. None.
Do you look at your role in those sorts of analytical situations as
requiring the same sort of objective reporting that is the goal of every
journalist in his or her day job, or is there an understanding that, because
you are there to represent a side of a debate, you have greater latitude to
advocate a position?
I don’t think I’m on discussion shows on radio and TV “to represent one side of
a debate,” or at least I hope not! On all issues, I’m delighted to consider all
sides; and I’m happy to report every angle. Last summer, when MVL shares fell
below 13, I spoke publicly about how odd that was when the company was scoring
higher profits and continuing to rise from the ignominy (another word I never
say on radio and TV) of bankruptcy. Now that the stock is over 19, I don’t take
any public position! So, while you ask me about “analytic situations,” when it
comes to stocks I’m not an analyst! I’m a storyteller, and whether on the radio
or in my books, I’m just trying to share the fascination and fun of things I
have learned.
I have noticed that most of your contributions to stock message boards
involve you disseminating information for the benefit of others. How often do
you obtain from someone else in that sort of forum information that is valuable
to you?
I do not post many messages on Internet boards, but I am enjoying a lot of the
StockArena posts – often hearing about Marvel-related events or press releases
that I had not seen elsewhere! For a few years, I was regularly reading the
MVL-related message on Yahoo’s finance site, but a high percentage of those
posts are silly and irrelevant now. I hope StockArena’s posters and info will
keep their high quality. And when I get something early and interesting, I
intend to share it – because that is what I like doing.
How has participation in online stock discussion boards made you a better
investor?
From time to time, online discussion boards have inspired me to dig deeper into
“shorts”, “hedge funds”, and the always vexed question of what is an
appropriate P/E ratio for a company involved in both licensing and
manufacturing toys! I read a lot of financial articles at Marketwatch.com,
Forbes.com, MotleyFool.com, and in the New York Times and other
newspapers. The online boards are not usually so professional or reliable, but
– kind of listening to a lot of talk radio (which I do) of all kinds – I’m
happy to read a lot of facts and rumors on the Internet. But some of those
rumors are just rumors!
What sorts of extracurricular projects are you working on now or hoping to
get to in the future?
I continue to do radio and TV reports for CBS News, and my favorite job is
hosting a 50-minute radio magazine show – the CBS News Weekend Roundup – which
is on at various times in various cities. I get to interview a lot of authors,
experts, and politicians for that show; and I also record chats with CBS
correspondents who’ve been at major stories during the week. My wife and I like
to travel, we love theater, we watch “24” and “The Amazing Race” on TV. And my
next book, I hope, will be an inside look at how a major government department
operates. It’s at an early stage, but as always I hope to learn a lot as I do
the research and the writing. As for Marvel and Comic Wars , there
continues to be talk in Hollywood of turning my book – and this amazing
turnaround story for an iconic part of American culture – into a movie. Let’s
hope!
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