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Letitia James and Daniel L. Squadron are both liberal Democrats, critics of stop-and-frisk police tactics who boast about fighting on behalf of homeless families and public housing residents. But over the next week, they have to convince a tiny fraction of New York City voters that one of them is better suited to the office of public advocate, a little-known post that offers a bullhorn on city policy and a potential steppingstone to City Hall.
Councilwoman Letitia James has the support of women’s groups, as well as many of the city’s major labor unions.
Follow the Race
Douggoodman.com From left, Kurt Andersen, Henry Blodget and Ken Auletta on a panel titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?†at the MIXX conference on Monday.
AS the 10th annual Advertising Week in New York began on Monday, speakers and panelists were paying a good deal of attention to what appears in between ads â€" a k a editorial content â€" as well as to the ads themselves.
The focus on content creation was partly related to content’s being part of a major trend on Madison Avenue known as content marketing or native advertising, which seeks to skirt consumers’ aversion to being pitched by dressing up ads to resemble articles or programs.
“For most of the last 200 years, advertising has been defined in tandem with journalistic content,†said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is holding its MIXX Conference and Expo 2013 during the first two days of Advertising Week.
As a result, he added, “the changing economics of content†ought to concern the advertising and marketing industries.
That was the subject of a MIXX panel, titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?†moderated by the author Kurt Andersen, who is also the host of the “Studio 360†podcast. The panel members represented two divergent points of view on the state of journalism and the proliferation of news sources â€" or what seem to be news sources.
“What is happening now is wonderful for journalism and the world,†said one panelist, Henry Blodget, chief executive and editor in chief of Business Insider.
“The world is vastly better informed,†he added, because “we’re getting more information all the time†along with “the ability to distribute anything to anybody through links.â€
“And we still have the old stuff,†Mr. Blodget said, referring to legacy media, though he acknowledged that “pockets of it are going through very rough transitions.â€
The other panelist, the author Ken Auletta, who also writes for The New Yorker, replied, “My answer to you, Henry, would be ‘Yes, but.’ â€
“Yes, Henry is correct that the digital revolution has democratized information and created two-way platforms,†Mr. Auletta said. “But newsrooms are 30 percent smaller than they were 10 years ago, there’s 50 percent less reporting on city halls and 40 percent of the local TV news is dominated by traffic, weather and sports.â€
Mr. Auletta also expressed disappointment that “by now, 15, 20 years into the Web,†there are fewer “indigenous news entities online†than he had anticipated, saying that the “commentary and aggregation†supplied by so many Web sites is not sufficient replacement for journalistic reportage. (He even joked how many Web sites that specialize in cat pictures “aggregate cat pictures; they don’t even make them.â€)
If a typical newspaper was once “news and a couple of pages of Op-Ed,†Mr. Auletta said, a typical Web site is too often “Op-Ed and a couple of pages of news.†Mr. Blodget responded this way: “People have more choice now. That is good. It’s impossible to say that is a bad thing.â€
Mr. Auletta replied: “Choice is good, no question about it. Choice about facts is not good.â€
In a discussion of how well or poorly legacy news media are adapting to the new economics, Mr. Auletta praised The Guardian newspaper as “probably as advanced an online publication as there is†for one whose roots are in print.
Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian, was a member of an Advertising Week panel on privacy, which was focused on the Edward J. Snowden affair.
The world is experiencing a “golden age of surveillance,†Mr. Rusbridger told the moderator, Alex Wagner of MSNBC. “This is way beyond ‘1984’; Orwell could never have imagined anything as complete as this.â€
Another reason that content was so popular a topic at various Advertising Week events is the growing affinity among consumers for using social media like Facebook and Twitter, where many of the most frequent and voluble discussions are centered on editorial content in the form of television programming, whether episodes of series, awards shows or live sports.
For instance, an Advertising Week panel, “Social Media Driving Social Change,†featured Ali Velshi, the former CNN correspondent who is a correspondent on the new Al Jazeera America cable channel, and Roy Sekoff, president of HuffPost Live at Huffington Post.
“We now use social media as a booking tool†to find guests for HuffPost Live video shows, Mr. Sekoff said.
Also, Twitter and the CBS Corporation announced a deal on Monday that involves clips and highlights from 42 shows being embedded into Twitter posts. CBS is joining a lengthy list of television companies that take part in an ad program of Twitter’s known as Amplify; 20 CBS brands are participating, including CBS News, CNET and Gamespot.
Amplify typically pairs video highlights and consumer advertising. Those packages are then delivered to Twitter users in the same way that other messages are sent on the service.
David Morris, chief client officer of CBS Interactive, declined to identify any advertisers, but said some would be announced soon.
“We’ve been out in the marketplace the last couple of weeks,†Mr. Morris said, referring to Twitter and CBS ad executives who have been visiting potential brand partners. “As we sit side by side in those sales calls, people get it almost instantly.â€
During another MIXX presentation, Brian King, global brand officer at Marriott International, described how a new Marriott campaign, which carries the theme “Travel brilliantly,†includes a microsite, or special Web site, where consumers are invited to suggest and vote on, through social media, potential ideas for innovative changes at Marriott properties.
Many suggestions are related to improving how room key cards work, Mr. King said, laughing. “I can’t tell you how many complaints I get about that.â€
Vindu Goel and Tanzina Vega contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on September 24, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Debating the Changing Economics of Editorial Content.
Twitter has been furiously adding partners to its Amplify advertising program ever since it began informally last year with a partnership between the social network, ESPN and the Ford Motor Company. In those initial ads, ESPN sent out clips of football games, wrapped in a Ford Fusion ad, as short messages on the service.
Since then, more than a dozen other content distributors, from the Fox television network to Globosat in Brazil, have joined the program, with brands including Heineken and AT&T promoting clips from major sports events like the U.S. Open tennis tournament and NCAA basketball games and live events like MTV‘s Video Music Awards.
On Monday, Twitter announced that it had signed CBS, one of its biggest partners yet. The broadcast and Internet network intends to use Twitter Amplify to showcase content from 42 products, from TVGuide.com to its fantasy football site.
As an example, Twitter and CBS showed off a possible “60 Minutes in 60 Seconds†ad, which could promote content from the venerable television news magazine.
Increasing advertising revenue is important to Twitter, which has filed preliminary paperwork to sell stock to the public in an initial public offering that could occur as soon as November. As part of the process of courting investors, the company will be publicly disclosing its financial performance for the first time.
The real-time nature of Twitter’s stream of messages, or tweets, pairs well with live broadcasts. During Sunday night’s Emmy Awards broadcast on CBS, for example, the number of tweets exceeded 17,000 per minute as Carrie Underwood performed her rendition of the Beatles‘ “Yesterday.â€
Television executives are intrigued by the possibilities of Twitter and TV reinforcing each other’s audiences.
“It’s a win-win-win situation,†said David Morris, the chief client officer of CBS Interactive, who appeared onstage as part of a Twitter presentation for Advertising Week 2013, an annual industry gathering in New York. CBS can send Twitter messages, or tweets, in real time, targeted to people who are likely to be interested in the content, with advertisers getting additional reach for their messages.
Mr. Morris declined to name any advertisers that would participate in CBS’s Amplify efforts, saying discussions were still going on. However, he said, “one advertiser asked us to partner and package up 20 of these shows.â€
Matt Derella, a Twitter executive who works with the company’s largest American advertisers, said that research by Twitter and Nielsen suggests that Twitter and television reinforce each other, boosting viewership and the volume of messages on Twitter.
Broadcasting commercials simultaneously on a TV show and Twitter can boost an ad’s message, Mr. Derella said. Twitter has found that users who saw a TV commercial and then engaged in some fashion with a Twitter ad for the same product indicated they were 58 percent more likely to to buy it than people who saw just the television ad.
“By adding Twitter to your buy, you will sell more stuff,†he said.
WASHINGTON â€" A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classified information to The Associated Press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year, the Justice Department announced on Monday. Federal investigators said they identified him after obtaining phone logs of Associated Press reporters.
The retired agent, a former bomb technician named Donald Sachtleben, has agreed to serve 43 months in prison, the Justice Department said. The case brings to eight the number of leak-related prosecutions brought under President Obama’s administration; under all previous presidents, there were three such cases.
“This prosecution demonstrates our deep resolve to hold accountable anyone who would violate their solemn duty to protect our nation’s secrets and to prevent future, potentially devastating leaks by those who would wantonly ignore their obligations to safeguard classified information,†said Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who was assigned to lead the investigation by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
In a twist, Mr. Sachtleben, 55, of Carmel, Ind., was already the subject of a separate F.B.I. investigation for distributing child pornography, and has separately agreed to plead guilty in that matter and serve 97 months. His total sentence for both sets of offenses, should the plea deal be accepted by a judge, is 140 months.
A Justice Department court filing claims that Mr. Sachtleben disclosed the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency had foiled a bomb plot in Yemen to an unnamed reporter â€" The Associated Press was not identified in the filing â€" on May 2, 2012. The news service broke the news that a plot had been foiled in Yemen on May 7.
A year later, it became known that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed phone companies for calling records for 20 phone lines of Associated Press offices and reporters, without providing advance notice to the organization so they could negotiate over the scope of the effort or ask a judge to quash the subpoena.
The disclosure helped set off a furor among journalists and members of Congress over the Justice Department’s aggressive methods in carrying out leak investigations, and Mr. Holder, who was recused from that investigation, later issued new guidelines tightening the circumstances by which investigators could go after reporters’ information.
The calling records proved crucial to identifying Mr. Sachtleben, the Justice Department said. An official familiar with the investigation said the F.B.I. had conducted more than 550 interviews at that point but had not managed to identify a suspect. The records showed communications between the reporter and Mr. Sachtleben, who became a suspect.
“Sachtleben was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation,†the Justice Department said in a statement. “This allowed investigators to obtain a search warrant authorizing a more exhaustive search of Sachtleben’s cellphone, computer, and other electronic media, which were in the possession of federal investigators due to the child pornography investigation.â€
LOS ANGELES â€" Bucking downward network-television ratings trends, the Emmy Awards on Sunday evening earned the biggest audience for an Emmys show in almost a decade.
More than 17 million people were tuned in at any average minute during the three-hour-plus telecast, according to Nielsen data supplied by CBS, the network whose turn it was to televise the awards ceremony. That average compared favorably to last year, when about 13 million viewers watched on ABC.
CBS estimated that about 40 million people caught some portion of Sunday’s telecast. The Emmys audience was inflated by the highly rated Jets-Bills football game that immediately preceded the awards on CBS (and delayed the start time by a couple of minutes).
Cable award winners like HBO’s “Veep†and Showtime’s “Homeland,†which have much smaller audiences than CBS, welcomed the exposure to millions of potential new viewers. The biggest winner of the night, AMC’s “Breaking Bad,†was competing with the Emmys somewhat â€" its second-to-last episode was shown at 9 p.m. Eastern, during the second hour of the ceremony.
“Breaking Bad†has been scoring new personal bests in the ratings as it barrels toward a Sept. 29 finale, and Sunday was no exception: 6.6 million viewers tuned in, beating last week’s record of 6.4 million. The audience for the show continues to skew young, with 4.3 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 49.
At times on Sunday the Emmys show seemed as dark as the drug-fueled story lines of “Breaking Badâ€; some viewers took to calling them the “death Emmys†on Twitter because of the inordinate number of in-memoriam segments about deceased stars. But the producers will be able to point to the ratings in rationalizing their programming choices. CBS said the total of 17.6 million viewers was the best for the Emmys since 2005.
Adap.tv, San Mateo, Calif., part of the AOL Networks unit of AOL, opened an office in Tokyo.
Don Albert joined AdsWizz, San Mateo, Calif., as North American president. He succeeds Alexis van de Wyer, who was promoted to chief executive in January. Mr. Albert had most recently been working with various companies as an adviser and director and before that had been vice president and general manager for the Americas and advertising at Skype.
AnalogFolk, London, opened an office in New York, to be led by Daniel Bennett, as director for strategy, and Jim Wood, as creative director. Mr. Bennett had been digital strategy director at JWT New York, part of the JWT division of WPP, and Mr. Wood has worked for agencies that include AKQA, JWT and Taxi. The office is AnalogFolk’s second, after opening in Sydney in 2011.
Tracy Armstrong and Chris Hsu joined the Blackboard Co., Austin, Tex. Ms. Armstrong becomes media director; she had been at agencies that include the Davis Group and GSD&M. Ms. Hsu becomes an account supervisor; she had worked on the Apple account at the TBWA/Media Arts Lab unit of TBWA Worldwide.
Brownstein Group, Philadelphia, hired seven employees. They are Kate Concannon, a copy editor; Jenna Hollmeyer, agency communications manager; Mallory Jaroski, a senior public relations account executive; Hannah McDonnell, a copywriter; Julia Missaggia, director for talent; Will Murdoch, a Web developer; and Michelle Woolford, a public relations account executive.
Creative Asylum, Hollywood, Calif., was acquired by Modus Operandi, Los Angeles. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came after more than 75 project collaborations, the agencies said, and a two-year strategic partnership. Modus Operandi now has its headquarters at what had been the Creative Asylum headquarters as well as offices in Portland, Ore.; Panama City, Panama; and Cebu City, Philippines.
Dino de León joined Shoptology, Dallas, part of Project WorldWide, in a new post, executive creative director. He had an executive creative director at TracyLocke, Dallas, part of the Omnicom Group.
Joe Esposito, director for audience solutions and product at Spafax Networks, New York, part of the Tenthavenue division of WPP, was promoted to vice president for product and operations.
Mark Herrington joined Shoutlet, Madison, Wis., as chief executive, a post that had been vacant since April. He had been executive vice president for global product management and innovation at the First Data Corporation.
Robert Kleman joined the Miami Beach, Fla., office of SapientNitro, part of Sapient, as executive creative director. He succeeds Juan Morales, who left to become executive creative director at BGT Partners, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mr. Kleman had been a creative director at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami, part of MDC Partners.
Lov, São Paulo, Brazil, part of Dentsu, is teaming with 360i, New York, another Dentsu agency, to help 360i open an office in São Paulo. It is the third office outside the United States that 360i has opened this year, joining London and Toronto.
Harmon Lyons joined Integral Ad Science, New York, in a new post, vice president for business development. He had most recently been managing director and global vice president for business development at the Resolution Media unit of the Omnicom Media Group, part of the Omnicom Group.
Mediamorph, New York, hired an executive for a new post and promoted an executive to a new post. Richard Cooper joined Mediamorph in the London office as international sales director; he had been business development manager at Red Bee Media, London. Also, Tim Rottach, who had been international managing director at Mediamorph, based in the London office, moves to New York and becomes vice president for marketing.
Kristin Morales joined the Portsmouth, N.H., office of Mad*Pow in a new post, director for business development. She had been director for business development at Raka Creative, Portsmouth.
Olo, New York, hired three executives for new posts. They are: Marty Hahnfeld, vice president for sales; Scott Lamb, vice president for account management; and Matt Tucker, chief operating officer.
Pace, Greensboro, N.C., was named Content Marketing Agency of the Year at the second annual Content Marketing Awards, presented by the Content Marketing Institute.
Point of Purchase Advertising Institute, Chicago, named two industry executive who will be inducted into the POPAI Hall of Fame on Dec. 12. They are: Gary Forman, chief executive at Henschel Steinau, and Bill Kolb, who is chairman at MRM Worldwide as well as chairman and chief executive at Commonwealth, both units of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
Rolaids â€" the antacid brand known for its long-running campaign carrying the theme “How do you spell relief?†â€" is being reintroduced by its new owner, the Chattem Inc. unit of Sanofi U.S., part of Sanofi, which purchased Rolaids from the McNeil consumer health care division of McNeil-PPC, owned by Johnson & Johnson. Ads created by Ferrara & Company, Princeton, N.J., feature Guy Fieri of the Food Network, who declares, “That’s how you spell relief.â€
Trueffect, Westminster, Colo., hired three executives for new posts. They are: Kevin Barhydt, vice president for business development; Ashley Grace, senior vice president for sales; and Darryl LaRue, senior vice president for operations.
April Weeks joined the Dallas office of Centro in a new post, vice president for regional media operations in the South. She had been senior vice president and senior director for media strategy and innovation at TM Advertising, Dallas, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com.
Q. Who is the actress who plays the clerk behind the counter in the current series of Toyota commercials? I think she is very good - and pretty, too.
A. Thanks, dear reader, for your question about the spots for Toyota Motor Sales USA, which promote what the carmaker calls sales events like annual clearances. In the commercials, the character, named Jan, deals with offbeat customers who come into a Toyota dealership as they shop for a new car.
“Actress Laurel Coppock plays Jan, the knowledgeable, helpful and quick-witted receptionist,†says Angela Seits, a spokeswoman at the agency that creates the commercials, which is the Los Angeles office of Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe.
Ms. Coppock has also appeared in episodes of popular sitcoms like “Arrested Development,†“Modern Family†and “The Office,†according to Ms. Seits.
The Toyota character is somewhat reminiscent of Flo, the character played by Stephanie Courtney in a long-running series of commercials for Progressive insurance. Flo is a sales clerk in a Progressive superstore.
There seems to be a boom, or boomlet, in characters being introduced in campaigns for major marketers; I recently wrote about new characters in ads for Campbell’s condensed soups and Meineke car care centers. Other examples include a campaign for Volkswagen with a new character named Johnny Conquest, and a campaign for Zantac antacid with a new character named Captain Zantac.
Q. Who is the man doing the voice-overs in the TriHonda Dealers commercials? It’s a very “New York†kind of voice.
A. The voice in the spots that are part of the TriHonda Dealers campaign, which carries the theme “Not just smart. Street smart,†is provided by Edward Burns, says Tricia Kenney, a spokeswoman at the agency that creates the campaign, which is Publicis Kaplan Thaler in New York.
Mr. Burns is the actor (“Saving Private Ryanâ€) and director (“The Brothers McMullenâ€) who may probably be better known now as the husband of the supermodel Christy Turlington. The TriHonda Dealers - formally the TriHonda Dealer Advertising Association - is composed of dealers in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Publicis Kaplan Thaler is part of the Publicis in the USA division of Publicis Worldwide, which is a division of the Publicis Groupe.
A company that operates high-end hotels and resorts is joining the ranks of marketers in the lodging and travel categories that seek to sell potential customers on accumulating rich experiences rather than expensive possessions.
The company, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, is introducing a campaign that carries the theme, “A sense of place,†which is complemented with another phrase, “A true journey never ends.†The budget for the campaign â€" including print and digital ads, online video and a redesigned Web site â€" is estimated at $8 million.
The campaign presents striking shots in a “living canvas†style by a Danish photographer, Anders Overgaard, of interesting and unusual things to do in cities where Rosewood has properties. For instance, one image, titled “Getting Lost in the Moment,†depicts a Temazcal ritual at the Rosewood Mayakoba in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
A second ad, titled “Behind the Magic Curtain,†shows a couple in formal wear backstage at a ballet in New York, where the Carlyle is a Rosewood hotel. A third ad, titled “Hitting All the Right Notes,†features guests enjoying a pianist at the Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle.
Other experiences that are highlighted in the campaign include sailing a dhow and riding bicycles in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rosewood has one hotel and intends to open a second, in 2015; and getting fitted for a dress and taking a calligraphy master class in Beijing, where Rosewood is to open a hotel early next year.
The campaign arrives as the company proceeds with expansion plans that involve doubling the number of properties under the Rosewood brand umbrella within five years. In the short term, in addition to the new hotel in Beijing, a Rosewood hotel is scheduled to open in London next month.
Beyond that, the company has proposed opening seven additional hotels, in markets like Bali, Indonesia; Chongquing, China; Nassau, the Bahamas; and Phukut, Thailand.
The campaign is being created for Rosewood by AgencySacks in New York, which specializes in advertising aimed at consumers at the upper end of the market; its slogan is, “We influence the affluent.†The Web site redesign is being handled by the Hong Kong office of Isobar, which is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network division of Dentsu.
AgencySacks has been working for Rosewood since 2004 and was kept on after the company changed hands in 2011, when the previous owners sold to New World Hospitality, a unit of New World China Land, for $800 million.
Rosewood is “a very-well-recognized brand,†says Sonia Cheng, chief executive of the company, which has offices in Dallas and Hong Kong. “We saw the opportunity to take it to the next level and expand Rosewood aggressively.â€
The campaign is intended to be part of efforts to “completely revamp†Rosewood “from a brand identity front,†she adds, to “keep up with what luxury travelers are looking for.â€
The campaign theme represents “a strong philosophy,†Ms. Cheng says, that gives the brand “a more modern look and approach.â€
“What Rosewood has right now is special,†she adds. “We want to make it as ‘un-hotel’ as possible.â€
By that, Ms. Cheng explains, she means that she wants to distinguish Rosewood from lodging chains that, as they grow bigger, “focus on quantity†rather than quality and make staying at each property “a cookie-cutter experience.â€
Rosewood, by comparison, tries to make each hotel “individualized,†she says, and let each have “its own personality that embodies local culture.â€
“What luxury travelers are looking for is not extravagance, but experience,†she adds.
A campaign for Loews Hotels and Resorts, introduced in July, also seeks to portray staying at each property as a unique experience. The Loews campaign, which carries the theme “The room you need,†is created by the Catch New York agency.
After Ms. Cheng came to Rosewood following the change in ownership, a brand consultant and graphic designer, Robert Louey, “helped us with the direction†of the makeover, she says. Then AgencySacks was brought in to work on a new campaign.
In many instances after a company changes hands, one of the first things the new owner does is look for a new agency. In this instance, Ms. Cheng says, she wanted to keep AgencySacks because “they know Rosewood inside out.â€
“It was a smart choice to make,†she adds.
Introducing “A sense of place†as the new theme for Rosewood speaks to the desire to “create experiences for the guests,†Ms. Cheng says, in a “living canvas†approach.
As part of that, the company is bringing experts it calls “curators†to the hotels, she adds, “and give the inside scoop on each location to the guests.â€