Here という should be taken as marking a true utterance, right?
On a show I was watching, one character said to another:

お話しというのは...

They were engaging in small talk, and clearly he wanted to get down to business, which in this case was a story. Should I interpret the fragment as:

"You said you had a story..."

Here という should be taken as marking a true utterance, right?

Question

Here という should be taken as marking a true utterance, right? 
On a show I was watching, one character said to another:

お話しというのは...

They were engaging in small talk, and clearly he wanted to get down to business, which in this case was a story. Should I interpret the fragment as:

"You said you had a story..."

Here という should be taken as marking a true utterance, right?

Answer

Direct translation is: "As for the thing called a story"
In more natural English it is something like, "As for the 'story'" (The quotes meaning that it had been mentioned earlier)
As a bonus, for the usage in your question, "はなし" is usually written 話 not 話し。
話 is a story or a "talk"　ちょっと話があるんだけどさ
話し is the noun form for the verb "speak."  It is like a gerund in English "speaking"

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