I hate the phrase Poverty Porn. Coming from a journalist who has every opportunity afforded to those of us that win the global lottery to be born and educated in Australia, it is insulting on so many levels. It’s dismissive of those that live it and lack such opportunity.

This week, just days after running an interview with Sunrise Cambodia founder Geraldine Ford, the Sydney Morning Herald and other media outlets have run a story criticising the use of a child in a the charity’s new advertising campaign. Journalists have decried the use of such ‘poverty porn’ defining it as:

‘…practices where charities use hard-hitting images, such as malnourished children, to draw empathy and donations.’

The child is seen in one of the print ads with the caption ‘Teach a sex worker to sew.’ Critics claim the use of the child is undignified, particularly since the model used in a local village girl, and not a sex worker. When I saw the story, I did a double take. ‘Is this really news’ I asked myself? A charity trying to raise funds to get children in a third world country educated used a local girl as their model for a marketing campaign. Is this really so different from Kemma, from a similar World Vision campaign, who is afraid of getting married at the age of 8? Is it different from using an Australian child to represent a similar image of domestic violence or sexual abuse? Is this what constitutes hard hitting reporting now?

That there are underage girls being forced into sex slavery in countries with low access to education – that is news. That there is a way that we can contribute to making the world work a little bit better – that is news. That there are people that dedicate their lives to offering opportunities to those that may not otherwise receive them – that is news. Great news, in fact. What is not news is that charities use models for their fundraising campaigns, or that people need to be prompted to contribute. As CEO Lucy Perry said, “…people won’t donate if you show a picture of a seamstress looking happy.”

I don’t know what is worse; that bad news sells, that we accept this level of reporting as newsworthy, that journalists need to print click bait headlines, or that media outlets are lazy enough not to show leadership in reporting real news.

Journalists are facing a squeeze, its true. More and more redundancies are occurring, more journos see their jobs in danger. Online news is making it tough for traditional news outlets. They have a business to run and the current climate is unsupportive of that. As a result, editors want click bait headlines and journalists feel compelled to write them. And we click on the links. As readers, we can’t solve the supply issue, but we can change the way we demand our news. We can change the equation.

Don’t click.

Send the message that we are intelligent enough not to fall for flimsily written articles which cherry pick unsubstantial new stories and sensationalise misinterpreted details. Treat each click like its worth more than a piece of bait. Make news outlets earn your click with better quality stories.

So, readers, YOU have a choice. You can click on the link here; its a salacious story pertaining to whispers of inappropriate use of children in an overseas charity advertising campaign. OR, you can click on this link here; it’s an article about the life changing work being done in Cambodia written by Sunrise Cambodia’s new CEO – proven NGO fundraiser and rule breaking personality Lucy Perry. You might even learn how you can help do something that makes the world a little better. You decide.