Princess Diana: Tribute, or Tacky?
VELSHI: That is beautiful. That is New York City right now, 72 degrees. The -- the weather report says partly cloudy but I'm going to call it partly sunny.</s>ROMANS: That's an optimistic view.</s>VELSHI: It's -- it's the same thing right?</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>VELSHI: You know a lot about the weather.</s>CHETRY: Why not?</s>VELSHI: All right, it was going up to 80. And that's the kind of a perfect little window, right?</s>CHETRY: Yes.</s>VELSHI: 72 now going up to 80 and partly sunny.</s>CHETRY: However, I hate to burst your bubble. This humidity is ridiculous. When we were coming in, did you notice there was steam on the windows entering the building?</s>VELSHI: Yes I know it.</s>CHETRY: That's the only tough part today.</s>VELSHI: It is outside but it's cooler than a lot of places are right now.</s>ROMANS: All right, that's true. And welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Princess Diana would have turned 50 years old on Friday. CNN's Zain Verjee has more on the controversy over there. She is live in London.</s>CHETRY: We're talking about the cover of "Newsweek" this morning.</s>ROMANS: Right. That -- that put what she would look like now right next to her daughter-in-law she's never met. It's very odd.</s>ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes a lot of people are saying it's creepy, it's uncomfortable, it's tasteless. Some people though, say, you know what, it's grabbing headlines and it wasn't such a bad idea. Just look at the cover and let viewers decide for themselves. You can see it's kind of a casual stroll down the street with Princess Diana and Kate Middleton there. When you read the article in "Newsweek" magazine, it also actually has a fashion face-off between Princess Diana and Kate Middleton and showing what their styles were. It also has a fake Princess Diana Facebook page and then it's also digitally modified another photograph that shows her carrying an iPhone. The article goes on to say if she was alive she would have remarried twice and she would have had more than 10 million Twitter followers. So yes, it grabs the headlines but I -- I didn't really like seeing that, to be honest guys. What did you think?</s>CHETRY: Well --</s>ROMANS: You know, these alternate history things always kind of creep me out. I mean whether it's what would have happened if JFK were still alive.</s>CHETRY: Right. I don't mind that actually. I don't -- I didn't mind the article. It was a thoughtful article by Tina Brown. It was just the -- and they aged her -- they digitally aged her. I mean and they put her head on another --</s>CHETRY: But that's not even her dress, right? They actually removed the head of somebody else and put her head on it right? I mean, I don't think that was her dress.</s>VELSHI: All right, I'm sold Zain. Now I'm creeped out.</s>CHETRY: Maybe it was her dress. Zain, was it?</s>VERJEE: Well, I'm not actually sure if it was her dress to be honest. But a lot of the chatter around our newsrooms was -- she -- she was an icon. We've just had the royal wedding. What would it be like for Prince William and Harry to look at something like this and the whole world was engaged. And everyone was asking on wedding day what if Diana was here, you know? It's a pity. And so it's just like tugs on everybody's, I guess, emotional heart strings a little bit on that one because she was such an icon for all of us here.</s>ROMANS: It certainly has us all talking about it. Tina Brown, the editor, she said it was meant to --</s>VELSHI: Yes everybody is going to be looking for that "Newsweek". Yes. She's shaking things up.</s>ROMANS: Yes, exactly. All right, thanks Zain.</s>VERJEE: Yes actually --</s>ROMANS: Go ahead. Go ahead.</s>VERJEE: Sorry. We did call "Newsweek" and Tina Brown did issue a statement and basically said, "We wanted to bring the memory of Diana alive in a vivid image that transcends time and reflected my piece." So that's what they are saying to all of the criticism today.</s>CHETRY: All right.</s>ROMANS: It's our question of the day. Thanks Zain.</s>CHETRY: If it was meant to transcend time, why did they have to digitally age her?</s>VELSHI: Oh, stop you cynics. Zain good to see you. It's our question of the day, as you said. People have -- here is what you have said about the cover of Prince's Di's -- "Newsweek" with Princess Diana on it. Who has got this?</s>ROMANS: I'll do this one.</s>VELSHI: All right, here we go, oh, got it. I found it. This is Diane. I'm sorry. A little slow this morning. "I was, am a Diana fan so I thought it was fun to see what she might have looked like. Are there more newsworthy subjects to cover? Absolutely. Did it deserve the cover of a magazine? Maybe not. And I think Diana would have loved Kate. Sue on her blog writes "Tacky and creepy. Poor Kate. She's already compared to Diana at every turn and now this? Let's give Kate a break and let Diana rest in peace."</s>CHETRY: Peter B on the blog says, "Not so much tacky as maybe irrelevant and inane. Is it 'Newsweek' or 'news weak'?"</s>VELSHI: I have to say, there are a lot of critics who said all of this is irrelevant including the royal wedding. It clearly wasn't. Ratings indicated that people loved the coverage of it. So a lot of people criticized, saying it's irrelevant. And apparently thought that irrelevant and in a world where all these bad news is going on all the time, people love the fact that the royal wedding gave them something positive. So I'm not sure it's irrelevant. A little tacky but I don't know if it's irrelevant.</s>CHETRY: 56 minutes after the hour. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.