In an era of “fake news”, the truth is hard to find. It’s also hard to know what’s true and what’s not. People do doubt the veracity of information, and so we are seeing a return to journalism as a credible and trusted source of information. It’s ironical that more than 2500 journalism jobs have been lost in Australia over the past six years.
When it comes to great journalism, there is no better newspaper than The New York Times. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 122 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The paper’s motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page.
About 18 months ago the newspaper started thinking about The New York Times as a consumer brand. And so they created a campaign called “The Truth Is Hard To Find”, a series of 60 second films that portrays the lengths that journalists go to capture stories like the Ebola outbreak, climate change, and the refugee crisis in Greece. It is 100% pure brand advertising, and their objective is to have more people in USA and around the world pay for their news.
All the photos in the films are real shots from the hard drives of the journalists who took the photographs. Even the camera shutter noise in each film is that of the same camera model that photographer uses. You or I might not be able to hear the difference between the shutter noise of a Nikon and a Canon, but it’s a level of detail that matters when your whole campaign hinges on “finding truth”.
I absolutely admire, respect and love the work of these journalists, and the agency (Droga5) and director (Darren Aronofsky) that produced these films. Here for your enjoyment and inspiration are two of the films from their campaign:
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(journalist is Tyler Hicks)
[videopress mJ8oxO9K]
(journalist is Josh Haner)
