Building on its award-winning “Truth” platform, the New York times turns the spotlight on the gender gap in sports in time for the U.S. Open semi-finals. 

The latest ad from Droga5 highlights the pay equity struggles of professional female athletes while underscoring Times journalism around the issue. Employing the now-familiar conceit of simple text in black and white, interspersed with audio pulled from life, the spot displays various key phrases from NYT's past coverage: “Girl-cott,” “No Backing Down, “Cry for Equality,” all set to sounds of a tennis match. It culminates with the headline from reporter Maya Salem’s 2019 story, “The Long Fight for Pay Equality in Sports.”

The ad will air during the U.S. Open semi-finals today. It's a fitting venue given that the U.S. Open, thanks to the efforts of Billie Jean King, has had gender pay parity since 1973. That year, King had threatened to sit out the tournament unless its male and female champs were paid equally. Since then, they have been. 

The spot underscores the paper’s commitment to covering gender inequity, including that in athletics. In 2017, the paper appointed Jessica Bennett its inaugural Gender editor.

The “Truth Has a Voice” campaign kicked off in 2018 with an ad centered on sexual harassment that aired during the Golden Globes Award, following the Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. It went on to highlight the paper’s reporting on NFL concussions, just ahead of the Super Bowl and then focused on the fight for female rights around the world to celebrate International Women's Rights Day.