Reporters Without Borders Channels a Dose of Reality

The power of facts on the ground over not-so-truthy TV

This press freedom appeal is as real as it gets.

In a campaign breaking across digital, print and OOH, Reporters Without Borders combines reality-TV show titles with harrowing news images from war zones, refugee camps and other trouble spots.

“Today, it’s easier than ever to avoid information. And parallel to this, the free press is being attacked by many un-democratic forces around the globe,” says Erik Larsson, president of RWB Sweden. “We need to remind people of the importance of facts over fiction. Ignorance is a terrifying thing.”

“Even if access to journalism is greater than ever, public engagement with hard news is declining,” says Joakim Khoury, creative director at Stockholm agency Åkestam Holst, which helped develop the campaign.

“As light entertainment and reality-TV dominate the global attention span, we wanted to snapshot this paradox and stop people in their tracks.”

Indeed, the jarring juxtapositions hit home, with contributions from Pulitzer Prize-winner Sergey Ponomarev, Wissam Nassar and other photographers—often working on battlefields and in the line of direct fire.

They remind us that in our dishy, disposable media age, intense inhumanity runs rampant. Journalists bring such stories to the fore every day, often losing their lives doing so. They hold a mirror up to the world and help us see ourselves—for better and worse.

The work drops this week, ahead of RWB’s “Press Freedom Index,” which rolls out soon.