It's sometimes difficult being a hack, torn between the completely frivolous and the more serious issues. So I feel for model and actress Maggie Q (pictured below), who has been hiding from the paparazzi, especially since the Edison Chen Koon-hei sex-photos scandal. Yet recently she made her first foray back into the media limelight by making a powerful video for Oxfam, along with actresses and musicians such as Scarlett Johansson and Annie Lennox.
We hacks always get cynical about actors who try to revive their careers or legitimise their fame and wealth by joining fashionable social causes. But not all causes are equal. Maggie Q has picked a worthy one. And why not? At least these actresses are trying to help, which is more than can be said about most people.
The video, In My Name - End Poverty - Be the Generation, warns how far many governments have slipped from the commitments they made to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 with the Millennium Development Goals eight years ago.
With a mixture of music, documentary clips and cartoon graphics, the video points out how progress has slowed. It calls on people to renew pressure on their leaders and get involved in the process.
It's not possible to end poverty in general, but the world has the resources and know-how to end extreme poverty - for people and children who live on less than US$1 a day.
What is lacking is political will. Sir Bob Geldof once said he didn't want his government to pillage and impoverish the world's disadvantaged in his name. Now you can be part of a worldwide campaign to pressure your governments to help end extreme poverty in your name - in your lifetime.