Why does New York Times and D5’s ‘Life Needs Truth’ seem such a radical message in 2020?

The New York Times has had many fine hours in its long life but one of its finest may turn out to be its crusade (can you say crusade these days?) for truth in the social media-driven era of fake news.

Here’s the latest in its ‘The Truth is Essential’ campaign from Droga5, ‘Life Needs Truth’ showing how the paper (now a powerful digital player too) can help you navigate this tricky, often unpleasant thing called life.

Created from NYT headlines, directed by Kim Gehrig to the jazz music of Makaya McCraven. We all know how important music is but this is perfect, summoning up the style of New York at its best somehow too.

There’ll be a few battles in store for the NYT as we go into a bitter presidential election fight, where the truth is still essential but may be pretty hard to find.

This makes us think we’re in good hands.

Impeccable from Droga5. The campaign’s a cert for a hatful of awards.

MAA creative scale: 9.5.