A Newspaper in Las Vegas, at Risk of Closing, Divides a Family

Ronda Churchill for The New York Times

Ric Anderson, center, the managing editor of The Las Vegas Sun, speaking to Brian Greenspun, its editor and publisher.

Tanned and fit, collar unbuttoned and no socks under his loafers, Brian Greenspun, the president of The Las Vegas Sun, stood in the middle of the newsroom, surrounded by $500 Herman Miller chairs, flat-screen monitors and floor-to-ceiling third-story windows offering an unmatched view of the Las Vegas Strip.

The Henderson, Nev., newsroom of The Las Vegas Sun, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

It was June 2005. Mr. Greenspun, whose family has owned the paper since his parents founded it in 1950, told dozens of reporters and editors that the joint operating agreement between The Sun and its more conservative rival, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, had been amended: The Sun would become the first daily in the country to be delivered inside its competitor, as if it were a separate section.

Despite the skepticism of some staff members that day, the newspaper was able to attract top journalists from across the country, resulting in national awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 2009. But the financial downturn, particularly harsh in Nevada, pummeled the paper, and dozens of longtime employees were laid off.

And now, the paper itself might disappear. Stephens Media, owner of The Review-Journal, wants to dissolve the joint agreement, intended to preserve newspapers. In exchange, the Greenspun family would receive the domain name lasvegas.com, a Web site the family currently leases from Stephens for up to $2.5 million a year and then subleases to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Mr. Greenspun’s brother, Danny Greenspun, and two sisters, Susan Greenspun Fine and Jane Greenspun Gale, all voted to accept the offer, but Brian wants to fight. Last month, he accused his siblings of “deciding to kill The Las Vegas Sun,” and he is suing Stephens, claiming that the offer gives The Review-Journal a local monopoly over news gathering and opinion.

At stake, he says, is Las Vegas’s future as a two-newspaper town. Doing away with the joint operating agreement “is equivalent to buying The Sun and shutting it down,” he said, adding of his siblings, “It’s a business deal to them.”

The dispute is the latest twist in the outsize history of the Greenspuns and Las Vegas. While there are better-known publishing families in the United States, few are more colorful.

Hank Greenspun started the paper with his wife, Barbara, after working as a publicist for the gangster Bugsy Siegel. In the 1940s, he was convicted of running guns to the paramilitary group that would become the Israeli Defense Forces. (He was fined, never jailed and later pardoned by President John F. Kennedy.) In the ensuing decades, he helped end segregation on the Strip, developed an 8,000-acre master-planned community and brought cable television to Las Vegas. He was also revealed to be a proposed target of the Watergate burglars. The Greenspun name is on schools, clinics and colleges.

The Sun first came to prominence in the 1950s for its opposition to Senator Patrick McCarran’s red-baiting tactics. (Hank Greenspun was also a vociferous opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy.) It continued to be a liberal voice amid the city’s dizzying growth, but by the time of Hank Greenspun’s death in 1989, the paper was losing millions. Within months, the joint agreement was created, but circulation continued to slide. By 2005, when the deal was revised, The Sun had fewer than 30,000 readers and essentially became a 6- to 10-page insert with no advertising.

On that day in 2005, Mr. Greenspun assured the 75 or so staff members that the deal would let the paper reinvest in journalism. In 2009, the paper won the industry’s highest honor, a Pulitzer Prize, for a series about construction deaths on the Strip.

But as the economy staggered, many of those same journalists were laid off or left. The paper once received as much as $12 million a year in profit-sharing through the joint agreement and now receives $1.3 million. Last month, the Greenspuns voted to dissolve the partnership.

None of the other Greenspun siblings would discuss the case. Brian Greenspun maintains that the deal violates antitrust laws. “In every antitrust violation, there’s always been at least two parties who combine based on it being a good business decision,” he said. His lawyers include Leif Reid, son of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, another prominent family in Nevada and long supported by The Sun.

But Donald Campbell, outside counsel for Stephens, said: “We believe his beef is with the wrong people. He is a dissident shareholder. The problem he has is with his own family.” Mr. Campbell also said the offer did not include a noncompete clause, so the Greenspuns, or anyone else, would face no legal obstacle in continuing to print The Sun. Mr. Greenspun contends that the costs to do so would be prohibitive.

Networks Get a Victory in Court Over Streaming Service

For the first time in nearly a year, the nation’s major television broadcasters have won a round in their legal battle against start-up firms that stream programs from local stations over the Internet without their consent.

The Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday against one such start-up, FilmOn X. The broadcasters that sued FilmOn, claiming copyright infringement, cheered the news. It was not immediately clear how the ruling might affect Aereo, a better-known streaming service backed by the head of IAC/InterActiveCorp, Barry Diller.

“We are pleased, but not surprised, that the court recognized that the commercial retransmission of our broadcast signal without permission or compensation is a clear violation of the law,” the Fox network said in a statement. The network said the preliminary injunction would apply across the country, with the exception of New York, Connecticut and Vermont, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has upheld Aereo’s business model in the face of lawsuits from the broadcasters.

Fox, which was joined in the suit by CBS, NBC and ABC, added, “This decision should finally put the matter to rest, and will hopefully discourage other illegal services from attempting to steal our content.”

FilmOn said the ruling was “just a temporary setback.” The service, previously named Aereokiller in a jab of sorts at Mr. Diller’s start-up, is the brainchild of the billionaire Alkiviades David. One of its features lets users live-stream programs from the local TV stations that are beamed over public airwaves in New York and elsewhere.

Both FilmOn and Aereo operate antennas that pick up the signals of local stations and send them over the Internet to viewers. This tactic has frustrated station owners because it bypasses the system of retransmission fees â€" paid by cable and satellite companies for the privilege of carrying those signals â€" which broadcasters have become increasingly dependent upon. Analysts have predicted that services like Aereo could seriously compromise retransmission fees.

Aereo has consistently said that it is operating within the law, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York has agreed. In July, Aereo won its third consecutive victory there when the court declined to hear the broadcasters’ appeal. Aereo, heartened by the court’s support, has expanded to markets like Boston and Atlanta, and the company says other market will follow.

The broadcasters have sought to stop companies like Aereo by seeking more favorable settings for lawsuits. In December, a federal court in California concluded that FilmOn had violated the copyrights of the broadcasters; the broadcasters pointed to that ruling when they filed suit in Washington.

In the ruling on Thursday, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said she had considered the court decisions in both New York and California and had found the latter “to be more persuasive.”

“Because there is no dispute of fact between the parties â€" indeed, each has won and each has lost in a different forum on these same facts â€" the court will grant plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction,” she wrote.

The injunction bars FilmOn from streaming the stations’ programs until a trial concludes.

In an e-mail, Mr. David iobjected to the ruling.

“We will win on appeal,” he said.

He said he would keep the service partly functioning in the meantime by streaming from independent stations that were not parties to the suit. Aereo was not part of the lawsuit, either, so the ruling does not automatically affect it. Other courts could cite Thursday’s ruling in the future, however â€" and the Supreme Court may eventually be asked to hear the case.

Jolie Among 4 Recipients of Honorary Oscars

LOS ANGELES â€" Angelina Jolie will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic work, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Thursday.

The award is one of four honorary Governors Awards the academy will present this fall in connection with the Oscars.

Ms. Jolie, a best supporting actress winner in 1999 for “Girl, Interrupted,” has collaborated extensively with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and has visited many refugee camps. Her acting career has included films like “A Mighty Heart” that tackle humanitarian issues.

Other honorary Oscars will go to Angela Lansbury, who has garnered three Academy Award nominations over her career, for “Gaslight,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Manchurian Candidate”; Steve Martin, a three-time Oscar host who is known for his versatility as a writer, actor, comedian and musician; and Piero Tosi, a costume designer who collaborated with the Italian director Luchino Visconti on films like “White Nights” and “Rocco and His Brothers.”

The academy’s Thalberg Award, which periodically honors a film producer for outstanding lifetime achievement, will not be presented, for the third year in a row. The last person to receive the Thalberg Award was Francis Ford Coppola in 2010.

The academy selected the honorees at a meeting on Tuesday night. The announcement was delayed until Thursday, the academy said, because the organization needed to notify the honorees privately before announcing their names publicly. It’s normally a relatively speedy process, but at midday Wednesday an academy spokeswoman warned in an e-mail, “We’re still trying to contact the honorees. Thanks for your patience.”

An academy official insisted there was nothing fishy afoot - an honoree refusing to accept an honor, for instance - and that it was simply a matter of tracking down people who were traveling, on vacation or otherwise determined not to be disturbed.

The Governors Awards will be presented at a dinner ceremony on Nov. 16. The Oscar ceremony will be held March 2.

Alec Baldwin to Host TV Interview Show on MSNBC

The long-rumored move of the actor Alec Baldwin to the new position of talk show host was confirmed on Thursday with the announcement that MSNBC had hired Mr. Baldwin for a once-a-week program in prime time.

The actor Alec Baldwin will host a weekly talk show on MSNBC starting in October.

The network said that Mr. Baldwin â€" most recently the star of the comedy “30 Rock” on the news channel’s sister network NBC â€" would host a show where he would conduct interviews related to current events and culture.

“Up Late With Alec Baldwin” will begin in October and fill the 10 p.m. Friday slot, replacing the network’s regular 10 p.m. host, Lawrence O’Donnell, for that night only.

Mr. Baldwin’s acting career has included dramatic roles on stage, on television and in movies, and comedy performances of all kinds, especially on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” where he has appeared as host a record 16 times. He is also a highly sought guest on late-night talk shows.

Most recently, Mr. Baldwin has expanded into conducting interviews on a podcast, “Here’s the Thing,” for the public radio station WNYC. In a statement, Mr. Baldwin cited that experience as whetting his appetite for a TV interview show.

“I’ve developed a fondness for hosting a show that involved talking with smart, talented and engaging people in every imaginable field,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I’m grateful to MSNBC for helping me bring a similar show to television.”

Judith Daniels, Editor of Savvy Magazine, Dies at 74

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Britain to Examine Why BBC Severance Payments Exceeded Contract Terms

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Acxiom Lets Consumers See Data It Collects

Jacob Slaton for The New York Times

Scott Howe, chief of Acxiom, displayed his own information last week to demonstrate the company’s consumer data portal.

Aboutthedata.com, a Web site introduced on Wednesday by a leading marketing technology firm called the Acxiom Corporation, is offering individual consumers a glimpse of some of the details the company has collected about them.

Aboutthedata.com shows some information that Acxiom, a marketing tech firm, collected about a 69-year-old woman.

Visitors who log in to the site may review many seemingly innocuous facts, such as whether someone in their household owns a dog or a cat, or is interested in jogging or biking.

Aboutthedata.com delivers a soothing message about Acxiom, a data broker that collects, stores, analyzes and sells billions of pieces of information about consumers with the aim of helping corporate clients like banks, insurers and retailers aim marketing pitches at specific audience segments.

“We have come to expect companies will make their interactions with us personal,” the site says. “We no longer want to receive mass marketing â€" getting bombarded with ads that have no relevancy to our lives.”

Yet critics say the new consumer site omits so many details about Acxiom’s data-gathering and analysis practices that it sanitizes the data mining behind data-driven marketing.

Aboutthedata.com, at least in its initial incarnation, leaves out many data elements that Acxiom markets to its corporate clients â€" intimate details like whether a person is a “potential inheritor” or an “adult with senior parent,” or whether a household has a “diabetic focus” or “senior needs.” Without a more complete picture of industry practices, privacy advocates say, consumers cannot make informed decisions about whether to share personal information with companies.

“It does not give an accurate picture of how this works,” Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer group in Washington, said of Aboutthedata.com. “The language is so innocuous that the average consumer would think there’s no privacy concern.”

Acxiom executives said that the initial version of the site included what it considered its core data about consumers, but that they planned to add information categories to the site on a regular basis.

For the last several years, members of Congress and federal regulators have been pressing the data brokerage industry to make its practices more transparent. Much of their criticism has focused on Acxiom, an industry leader that has amassed information on the financial means, residential status and shopping habits of a majority of adults in the United States.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report on consumer privacy that recommended that Congress pass a law requiring greater transparency for data brokers. Unlike consumer reporting agencies, which are required by federal law to give consumers free copies of their credit reports and allow them to correct errors, companies that collect marketing data are not required to show consumers information that has been collected about them.

Some regulators have warned that the industry’s data-mining could be used for discriminatory practices â€" such as offering elite consumers better pricing or identifying financially troubled consumers who might be susceptible to predatory lending.

Now the new site positions Acxiom as the industry leader in responding to regulators’ concerns. Julie Brill, a member of the F.T.C., described the Acxiom site as “a first step down this important road towards greater transparency.”

In addition to allowing consumers to view their records or to opt out of Acxiom’s marketing databases, the site lets them change individual data elements in their files.

Scott E. Howe, the chief executive of Acxiom, based in Little Rock, Ark., said in an interview last week that the company wanted to give consumers greater control over their data.

“The whole role of the consumer as another voice in the equation hasn’t been heard effectively by folks who deal in data until now,” Mr. Howe said. If consumers en masse correct or update their Acxiom files, the company would benefit by being able to offer its corporate clients better-quality data, he said. But, he said, it could be a problem if consumers opt out in large numbers.

Aboutthedata.com received mixed reviews on its opening day. Some consumers, privacy advocates and data security specialists said that they had trouble logging in, or logged in only to find that no information was available about them. Some criticized the site’s identity verification system â€" which requires name, address, date of birth and the last four digits of the Social Security number â€" as insufficiently secure. Others noted that, while consumers could opt out of Acxiom’s marketing databse, they were not given the opportunity to opt out of every Acxiom product.

“Consumers are not fully in control of their information until they can request Acxiom permanently delete their data and prevent the company from using their information for purposes other than marketing,” said Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who last year opened an investigation into data brokers including Acxiom. “I plan to continue my oversight and investigation into the data broker industry to make sure Americans know how this industry operates and consumers have power over their own information.”

But mostly critics faulted the site for promoting data-driven marketing without explicitly describing some of Acxiom’s more sophisticated consumer-tracking techniques. In marketing materials, for instance, Acxiom describes one of its products, called AbiliTec Digital, as a data-powered “customer recognition” service that helps companies link a customer’s history with his or her name, nickname, e-mail address, home address, and mobile and landline phone numbers.

While that kind of pervasive surveillance may be useful for companies, it could also make consumers more vulnerable to pitches for products that are not necessarily good for them, said Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law who studies consumer privacy. In a recent research paper on industry practices, he imagined a hypothetical obese consumer who tries to avoid snacking but receives an ad on his mobile phone from the nearest doughnut shop exactly when he is least likely to resist.

“That is a dangerous direction,” Mr. Calo said, “because it starts to figure out what makes each of us vulnerable.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 5, 2013, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Acxiom Lets Consumers See Data It Collects.

Advertising: GoDaddy Steps Away From the Jiggle

GoDaddy Steps Away From the Jiggle

The action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme appears in a new GoDaddy campaign that avoids the raciness of past ads.

A MARKETER whose sexy advertising polarized consumers for years is trying to distance itself even more from its previous provocative approach, as executives seek to strike a balance between being noticed and being castigated.

In a commercial scheduled to begin running on Thursday, GoDaddy, the Internet services company, will recast itself as a helpmate to small-business owners by adopting a new theme for its advertising, “It’s go time.” The commercial, by Deutsch New York, part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies, features the action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme playfully embodying the new GoDaddy brand personality by enabling entrepreneurs to meet whatever challenges they face.

In interviews and news releases, GoDaddy executives are describing the new brand personality with phrases like the one a family newspaper would paraphrase as “enabling our customers to kick tail.” But the sassy unparaphrased version is missing from the commercial, which will appear on godaddy.com as well as on television, initially during the NBC coverage of the first game of the N.F.L.’s 2013-14 season.

The changes in GoDaddy’s approach arrive as marketers and consumers debate how far is too far when it comes to language and imagery in mainstream ads. The original GoDaddy brand personality was characterized by buxom, scantily clad women called “GoDaddy Girls”; ad copy replete with double entendres, many delivered by the racecar driver Danica Patrick; and online commercials that were racier than the eyebrow-raising television versions. Bob Parsons, the founder of GoDaddy who was then its chief executive, originated and reveled in those tactics for what he called “GoDaddy-esque” ads.

Warren Adelman, who took over from Mr. Parsons when GoDaddy came under new ownership in 2011, ended that approach in favor of a tack focused on products and services. In June 2012 he hired Deutsch New York, the company’s first outside agency, which a month later brought out a commercial that paired the sexy side of GoDaddy with a smart, technically proficient side. The “smart meets sexy” idea was reiterated in a spot that ran in February during Super Bowl XLVII, which drew attention for a long kiss between the model Bar Refaeli and a nerdy actor, Jesse Heiman By that time, GoDaddy had another chief executive, Blake Irving, who was even more determined to put the “GoDaddy-esque” ads in the past.

“We got a lot of attention â€" we were edgy, funny,” Mr. Irving said in a phone interview, referring to the original brand personality. “We were also on the edge of inappropriate.”

That affected GoDaddy’s dealings with the online marketplace Etsy, he said, which “has a contingent of women business owners,” adding that executives at Etsy told him they were “getting so much pressure” for doing business with GoDaddy.

There is another way to advertise, Mr. Irving said, that “doesn’t have to push customers away: still edgy, still fun, still entertaining, still irreverent” but “talking in a more grown-up way, doing things that are hilarious, memorable and don’t polarize.”

The Van Damme campaign is “meme-able,” he added â€" that is, likely to generate positive attention through being shared by consumers in social media.

In the commercial, a baker who needs dough sees on his PC that his business, Ben’s Bread Box, has 25 new orders to fill. Suddenly, Mr. Van Damme appears in the kitchen, not as an actor but as a one-man band, playing a peppy tune, performing some of his trademark splits and declaring, “It’s go time.” Motivated, the baker completes kneading the dough for all the orders. On screen, the words “More business. More ready. It’s go time” appear as Mr. Van Damme whispers: “It’s go time. GoDaddy.”

Greg DiNoto, partner and chief creative officer at Deutsch New York, said: “We wanted an inspiring line that sounded consistent with the GoDaddy brand. ‘It’s go time’ says we support small-business owners, helping them get ready to do battle, ready to step up. Jean-Claude Van Damme is representative of the spirit of this go-getter target audience; he winkingly says, ‘Let’s do business, let’s kill it.’ ”

For all the consumers who were turned off by the “GoDaddy-esque” ads, there were many hard-core fans who delighted in them. “Those folks who loved GoDaddy in the past and are small-business owners will feel even more understood by GoDaddy,” Mr. DiNoto said. “They’ll think, ‘Now GoDaddy is really bringing it, with substantive tools.’ ”

On the other side of the coin, “whatever we’ve lost in ‘sexy’ we hope we’ve gained in smart and substantial,” he added.

Competitors are watching whether GoDaddy can walk the line between keeping its fans and changing minds among critics. For instance, Anthony Casalena, chief executive of the New York-based hosting service Squarespace, said: “Companies have a DNA. It’s difficult to say you’re different from the way you were the past 10 years. That’s a challenge for them.”

Mr. Casalena described Squarespace â€" which recently introduced a low-key campaign, on television and online, that was created internally â€" as a company that didn’t need to reset its image.

“The image you put online is important,” he said. “We want to create a platform where designers and art directors, people serious about image and branding, align with us.”

Barb Rechterman, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at GoDaddy, said the new campaign would benefit from a decision to “move some advertising dollars forward” into the fourth quarter from next year.

In the first quarter of 2013, the most recent period for which data were available, GoDaddy spent $11.6 million to advertise in major media, the Kantar Media unit of WPP reported; ad spending totaled $34.6 million last year, $35 million in 2011, $31.4 million in 2010 and $22.3 million in 2009.

A version of this article appears in print on September 5, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: GoDaddy Steps Away From the Jiggle.

Advertising: New Ad Campaign Targets Childhood Hunger

New Ad Campaign Targets Childhood Hunger

The Advertising Council and Feeding America, a domestic hunger relief organization, introduced a public service campaign on Thursday to tackle childhood hunger.

An ad from the new campaign by The Advertising Council and Feeding America, a domestic hunger relief organization.

According to data released on Wednesday by the Agriculture Department, almost 16 million children, or more than one in five, face hunger in the United States. This condition can affect their future physical and mental health, academic achievement and economic productivity.

The department also found that close to 50 million Americans were living in “food insecure” households, or ones in which some family members lacked “consistent access throughout the year to adequate food.” And it found that although the figures were unchanged since the economic downturn began in 2008, they were much higher than in the previous decade.

The ad campaign is the latest initiative in a long collaboration between the Ad Council and Feeding America, which each year supplies food to more than 37 million Americans through a network of some 200 local food banks. Those food banks, in turn, distribute food to 61,000 food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.

Awareness efforts by the two groups began in the late 1990s, when Feeding America was called America’s Second Harvest. Previous advertising â€" some featuring celebrities like the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck â€" was aimed at raising awareness about the problem of hunger.

A TV spot this year, created by the San Francisco-based Cutwater, featured the “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie and focused on childhood hunger. As preparation, Ms. Guthrie visited the Fox Run Elementary School in Norwalk, Conn., which participates in a program run by the Connecticut Food Bank, part of the Feeding America network. One child she spoke to mentioned a “food angel who leaves baskets of food outside the house with all the food the family needs,” a concept that became Cutwater’s inspiration for the latest campaign.

The new ads are being released to coincide with Feeding America’s Hunger Action Day, part of the organization’s Hunger Action Month, held annually in September. They include TV, radio, print, outdoor and digital executions.

Television spots use video of workers and volunteers at the Food Share food bank in Oxnard, Calif., which is also part of the Feeding America network; they are depicted wearing drawings of angel wings. The voice-over says, “They’ve earned their wings and you can, too.”

Radio spots feature the singer Kelly Clarkson, the boxer Laila Ali, the chef Curtis Stone and Ms. Guthrie. In one, Ms. Clarkson says, “17 million kids in America don’t know where their next meal is coming from or if it’s even coming at all. That’s why the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks gets surplus food to hungry kids. They’re like food angels. And you can earn your wings, too. Find out how at FeedingAmerica.org.”

Priscilla Natkins, an executive vice president of the Ad Council, said that when the organization began working on hunger relief efforts, only one in 10 Americans was hungry; that number is now one in six adults and more than one in five children.

“One reason we’ve chosen to focus on children is that it is a more poignant approach of illustrating the problem,” she said. “The numbers are more stark; it drives home the severity of the issue.”

Chuck McBride, founder and chief creative officer of Cutwater, said the issue of childhood hunger “isn’t cancer. It’s a completely rectifiable issue. The quantity of surplus food clearly outnumbers the number of hungry people. It’s logistics.”

He said the “food angel” ads “take the rhetoric and flip it. Instead of saying ‘Here’s a problem and we can fix it,’ we say, ‘Here’s the solution and we can help.' ”

Maura Daly, chief communication and development officer at Feeding America, said the new campaign was aimed at “adults who care” and could make financial contributions or volunteer at a food bank.

Advertising: New Ad Campaign Targets Childhood Hunger

New Ad Campaign Targets Childhood Hunger

The Advertising Council and Feeding America, a domestic hunger relief organization, introduced a public service campaign on Thursday to tackle childhood hunger.

An ad from the new campaign by The Advertising Council and Feeding America, a domestic hunger relief organization.

According to data released on Wednesday by the Agriculture Department, almost 16 million children, or more than one in five, face hunger in the United States. This condition can affect their future physical and mental health, academic achievement and economic productivity.

The department also found that close to 50 million Americans were living in “food insecure” households, or ones in which some family members lacked “consistent access throughout the year to adequate food.” And it found that although the figures were unchanged since the economic downturn began in 2008, they were much higher than in the previous decade.

The ad campaign is the latest initiative in a long collaboration between the Ad Council and Feeding America, which each year supplies food to more than 37 million Americans through a network of some 200 local food banks. Those food banks, in turn, distribute food to 61,000 food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.

Awareness efforts by the two groups began in the late 1990s, when Feeding America was called America’s Second Harvest. Previous advertising â€" some featuring celebrities like the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck â€" was aimed at raising awareness about the problem of hunger.

A TV spot this year, created by the San Francisco-based Cutwater, featured the “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie and focused on childhood hunger. As preparation, Ms. Guthrie visited the Fox Run Elementary School in Norwalk, Conn., which participates in a program run by the Connecticut Food Bank, part of the Feeding America network. One child she spoke to mentioned a “food angel who leaves baskets of food outside the house with all the food the family needs,” a concept that became Cutwater’s inspiration for the latest campaign.

The new ads are being released to coincide with Feeding America’s Hunger Action Day, part of the organization’s Hunger Action Month, held annually in September. They include TV, radio, print, outdoor and digital executions.

Television spots use video of workers and volunteers at the Food Share food bank in Oxnard, Calif., which is also part of the Feeding America network; they are depicted wearing drawings of angel wings. The voice-over says, “They’ve earned their wings and you can, too.”

Radio spots feature the singer Kelly Clarkson, the boxer Laila Ali, the chef Curtis Stone and Ms. Guthrie. In one, Ms. Clarkson says, “17 million kids in America don’t know where their next meal is coming from or if it’s even coming at all. That’s why the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks gets surplus food to hungry kids. They’re like food angels. And you can earn your wings, too. Find out how at FeedingAmerica.org.”

Priscilla Natkins, an executive vice president of the Ad Council, said that when the organization began working on hunger relief efforts, only one in 10 Americans was hungry; that number is now one in six adults and more than one in five children.

“One reason we’ve chosen to focus on children is that it is a more poignant approach of illustrating the problem,” she said. “The numbers are more stark; it drives home the severity of the issue.”

Chuck McBride, founder and chief creative officer of Cutwater, said the issue of childhood hunger “isn’t cancer. It’s a completely rectifiable issue. The quantity of surplus food clearly outnumbers the number of hungry people. It’s logistics.”

He said the “food angel” ads “take the rhetoric and flip it. Instead of saying ‘Here’s a problem and we can fix it,’ we say, ‘Here’s the solution and we can help.' ”

Maura Daly, chief communication and development officer at Feeding America, said the new campaign was aimed at “adults who care” and could make financial contributions or volunteer at a food bank.

Live, From Atlanta, an Unusual Hire

Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Brandon Gaudin, center, is the fourth man in 61 seasons to be Georgia Tech’s play-by-play announcer.

ATLANTA â€" Brandon Gaudin surveyed the four front-row chairs in the Georgia Tech radio booth last Saturday.

Brandon Gaudin was among more than 150 applicants for Georgia Tech’s radio play-by-play job.

“Where’s my spot?” he asked. “Right here?”

He rendered a guess and dropped his gear.

It was opening day for Yellow Jackets football and the biggest day in the professional life of Gaudin, the fourth man in 61 seasons to occupy the team’s radio play-by-play seat, whichever one it was.

Gaudin propped up his iPad and dug out his smartphone â€" modern-day accessories to the trade’s traditional tools, like colored pens, a notepad, a depth chart, a flip card, a statistics sheet and a commercial break schedule.

Someone identified himself as the fetcher of drinks for those in the booth. “The one legacy I’ve left,” Gaudin said, “is having the world’s smallest bladder.”

He smiled at the self-deprecating joke, knowing he had not blathered about sports into a microphone long enough to establish a legacy of any sort.

Less than an hour later, after a swig of water that would stay in his system for a while, Gaudin delivered his first unrecorded words to the Georgia Tech audience: “Live from Bobby Dodd Stadium. Welcome, everybody. I’m Brandon Gaudin.”

There was no telling how many listeners heard that and said, “Who?”

Football is a young man’s game, but the art of describing it on the radio has largely been the purview of those middle-aged and older. Georgia Tech athletics is affiliated with IMG College, which holds the multimedia rights to the football programs of 80 universities, making it the largest such network. On average, two jobs within that group become available each year, and 15 of the current IMG announcers have been calling games from the same campus for at least 30 years, longer than Gaudin, 29, has been alive.

More than 150 people applied to succeed Wes Durham, who began announcing Atlantic Coast Conference games on Fox Sports South this season after 18 years at Georgia Tech.

“You are looking for more than a guy who can just do the games on radio and host a chicken-and-green-bean event,” Durham said. “You are looking for versatility, on multiple platforms. It’s a much more flexible job than when I showed up at Georgia Tech.”

Georgia Tech, with input from IMG, sought someone who could serve, as several officials put it, as an ambassador â€" not merely a radio voice for football and basketball, but a face to represent the university.

“This goes so far beyond the game broadcasting,” Athletic Director Mike Bobinski said. “He must have the ability to stand in front of groups and tell the Georgia Tech story.”

Bobinski had been at Georgia Tech for only two and a half months when Durham walked into his office in June to resign. The season opener against Elon, Durham’s alma mater, was less than three months away.

Gaudin had announced games for Butler, his alma mater, for three years before noticing the Georgia Tech vacancy on a trade Web site.

He advanced past the first round of cuts, and IMG sent his name and about 30 others to Bobinski. The list dwindled to 10 names, then four. Gaudin was one of the finalists, in part because of his experience calling two Final Fours while at Butler.

Among the prerequisites was the ability to relate to graduates, many of whom were old enough to be Gaudin’s father, and to understand the mind-set of an alumni base that took its football seriously but not with life-or-death gravity.

Georgia Tech chose Gaudin, a man as boyish-looking as Brad Stevens, the basketball coach who also left Butler this summer, going to the Boston Celtics.

When Gaudin is not working, he favors hoodies and jeans. He gobbles peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He relied on his mother to stock his apartment with supplies. He shoots continually at a Little Tikes basketball rim (for ages 3 and up, according to its box) hanging over his bedroom door.

“My track record is, I’m sort of age-blind,” Bobinski said. Besides, Gaudin’s maturity, Bobinski said, “belies his time on earth.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 5, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of seasons that Al Ciraldo Jr.’s father announced games. He did it for 38 seasons, not 35.

A version of this article appears in print on September 5, 2013, on page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: Live, From Atlanta, An Unusual Hire.

Bezos Is a Hit in a Washington Post Newsroom Visit

Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s founder and the prospective new owner of The Washington Post, assured newsroom employees on Wednesday that he was committed to preserving quality journalism, investing in news and making sure The Post adhered to his underlying philosophy about content: “Don’t be boring.”

The Washington Post on Aug. 6 announcing the sale of the newspaper to Jeffrey Bezos, of Amazon.com, for $250 million.

Timeline

Over the course of the day, he gave some indication of the kind of journalism that interested him, answered questions about the Post’s coverage of Amazon and did not disguise his interest at the intersection of his businesses, telling an afternoon meeting that “it should be as easy to get a subscription to The Post as it is to buy diapers on Amazon,” according to one employee who attended the meeting.

The two-day visit was Mr. Bezos’s first trip to The Post since he agreed to buy the paper in early August for $250 million. Before the deal closes in October, Mr. Bezos made the visit to chat with employees from both the business and editorial sides about his plans for the company. By the end of his visit late Wednesday, Mr. Bezos seemed to have won over employees who posted photographs of him, speculated on how many electronic devices he had in his pockets, liberally quoted his thoughts on the news business on social media and gave him the hashtag #bezospalooza.

“He charmed the room of 20 hard-bitten journalists,” said Jeffrey Leen, The Post’s investigations editor, who attended a lunch meeting with Mr. Bezos. “He was a big supporter of investigative reporting, which warmed my heart. He already has a very good grasp of our business. It was, all in all, a very impressive performance.”

Mr. Bezos started the day Wednesday with an hourlong breakfast with Bob Woodward in the ninth-floor publisher’s private dining room, where the two men dined on a fruit plate, poached eggs, spinach, coffee and orange juice. Mr. Woodward said in an e-mail after the meeting that through the breakfast, “Jeff Bezos explained the thinking behind his reasoned and careful step-by-step process in deciding to buy The Post.”

Mr. Woodward added, “I was struck by how wide-ranging and methodical he is. He voiced strong, even intense, optimism about the future of The Post, and I suspect he will be calling on everyone here to pitch in with extra amounts of energy, focus and creativity.”

Mr. Bezos then met for a little more than an hour for coffee with about 20 reporters in a neighboring ninth-floor conference room and talked about how he defined success.

“What’s been happening over the last several years can’t continue to happen,” he said.

Mr. Bezos told reporters that the paper should focus on delivering important, compelling stories to its readers. If it does that, advertisers will come, he said. Several reporters said that message left them upbeat after the meeting, convinced that Mr. Bezos was committed to high-quality journalism.

“You got the feeling that he is not here to just take The Washington Post brand name and turn it into something else,” said one reporter who attended and spoke anonymously. “This is not somebody who is in a panic trying to make a profit for next year. He wants to solve it in a way that will endure for decades.”

For lunch, Mr. Bezos met with senior editors for a buffet of chicken, salmon, salad and cookies. Mr. Bezos mentioned that some of The Post’s recent coverage that he had found especially intriguing included the articles “9 Questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask“, and the obituary of a bouncer at The 9:30 Club, a well-known Washington club.

In the late afternoon, Mr. Bezos met with the entire newsroom in the first-floor community room for a question-and-answer session that lasted an hour and 20 minutes. That was the most widely chronicled event, with employees posting Twitter messages and comments â€" or what they called “Bezosisms” â€" every few minutes. Mr. Bezos answered questions about why he decided to buy The Post and why he would be interested in buying a newspaper when Amazon had a reputation for being slow to answer reporters’ questions.

Erik Wemple, the Post’s media reporter, quoted him on Twitter as saying, “I’ve always felt that the most powerful minds in the world can hold powerful inconsistencies.”

Toward the end of the session, Mr. Bezos addressed more difficult questions like the possible conflict of interest between The Post and Amazon’s contract for computer work with the Central Intelligence Agency. One employee, who attended the session but did not feel comfortable speaking on the record about his future owner, said that while Mr. Bezos “danced around” his answer, he added that he expected The Post to aggressively cover this relationship.

Mr. Bezos may have offered his most assuring comments when asked about his thoughts on journalism’s future. In a post, Cara Ann Kelly, The Washington Post’s Style Web producer, quoted him as saying, “If it’s hopeless â€" I would feel sorry for you guys â€" but I wouldn’t want to join you.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 5, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Bezos Is a Hit in a Washington Post Newsroom Visit.