The Deseret News is a newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and is Utah's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. It has the second largest daily circulation in the state behind The Salt Lake Tribune. The Deseret News is owned by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is a for-profit business holdings company owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The newspaper is printed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which it co-owns with the Kearns-Tribune LLC, a fully owned subsidiary of Media News Group, under a joint operating agreement. As of 2006, combined circulation of the two papers was 151,422.

The Deseret News also publishes a weekly tabloid-sized insert, the Church News, and the Mormon Times insert, both of which are included in the newspaper (in the Saturday and the Thursday editions, respectively); the two inserts are also distributed as a separate publication outside of Utah. Church News includes news of the LDS Church and has been published since 1931, while the Mormon Times is about "the people, faith and culture associated with the church". Since 1974 the Deseret News has also published the Church Almanac, an annual edition carrying LDS Church facts and statistics edited by Church News staff.

Clark Gilbert is the President and CEO of the Deseret News and also of Deseret Digital Media. He is the first person to ever hold the title of president of the Deseret News.

Gilbert earned his bachelors degree at Brigham Young University (BYU). He has a masters degree from Stanford University and a Doctorate of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Gilbert was a professor at Harvard Business School. While there he was an adviser to the American Press Institute's Newspaper Next project on ways for newspapers to transition to the digital age.

After being a professor at Harvard, Gilbert joined the faculty of BYU-Idaho where he served as Associate Academic Vice President of Academic Development.

In 2009 Gilbert became the CEO of the newly formed Deseret Digital Media, a subsidiary corporation of Deseret Management Corporation that runs the websites of the Deseret News, Church News, Mormon Times, KSL radio and Deseret Book.

In May 2010 Gilbert was appointed president of the Deseret News. He did not replace Jim Wall the publisher or Joseph A. Cannon the editor, but fills a new role in the organization.

Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986) both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years. He is also known as an advocate for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he has been a lifelong practicing member, and as a political commentator on many issues, including opposition to homosexual behavior and the legalization of same-sex marriage.

A film adaptation of Ender's Game is currently in development, and is set for release on March 15, 2013. Card is co-producing the film.^{[citation needed]}

Card is the son of Willard and Peggy Card, third of six children and the older brother of composer and arranger Arlen Card. Card was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Santa Clara, California as well as Mesa, Arizona and Orem, Utah. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Brazil and graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah; he also spent a year in a Ph.D. program at the University of Notre Dame. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, an environment that has played a significant role in Ender's Game and many of his other works.

Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias (born 1946) is an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian apologist. Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God? and bestsellers Light in the Shadow of Jihad and The Grand Weaver. He is the founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, host of the radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking, and visiting professor at Wycliffe Hall of Oxford, where he teaches apologetics and evangelism. Zacharias studied as a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and held the chair in Evangelism and Contemporary Thought at Alliance Theological Seminary from 1981 to 1984. Commentator Chuck Colson referred to Zacharias as "the great apologist of our time."

Zacharias was born in Madras, India. Zacharias claims descent from a woman (of the Nambudiri Brahmin caste) and a low caste Boatman. Missionaries spoke to one of his ancestors about Christianity and thereafter the family was converted. Zacharias grew up in a nominal Anglican household, and he himself was an atheist until the age of 17, when he unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by swallowing poison. While in the hospital, a local Christian worker brought him a Bible and instructed his mother to read to him out of John 14. Zacharias says that it was John 14:19 that touched him and caused him to commit his life to Christ.