I have never met Mr. S .... I have also never met anybody who has met Mr. S .... All I know about Mr. S ..., I have read on the Internet.

I write about Mr. S ... because he has disciples who want him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I am against that.

I think it would be hypocritical to award him, even if it's not a Nobel Prize but a lesser recognition. I write about him to avoid that he gets awards because having worked in the media my whole life, I probably have a better awareness of the hypocritical aspects of his stardom than some of those who decide on awards.

Mr. S ... has, for a long time, projected himself onto the media, as a source of sexy topics and as a celebrity contributor. The theme on which he rode to fame, of course, was the immorality of child prostitution in the Philippines.

But having worked for the press, including the tabloid media, I know how moral topics are sorted there.

The greatest ethical scandal of the modern world, the dying of millions of children every year in Third World countries, primarily Africa, because of malnutrition or easily preventable diseases, is not a good topic for the media, especially not the tabloids. It is unappetizing.

Everybody knows that it is ongoing, and that it is preventable. Everybody with a moral sense knows deep inside that he should donate half his salary for children dying of malnutrition or malaria in Africa. But of course, people want to use themselves the money they earn, and they want to eat delicious food and have entertainment.

It is well-known in the tabloid media that if you repeatedly run stories about world hunger, or the ongoing suffering of children in Africa, your readers will buy other newspapers. People don't want to be reminded that as upright citizens, they should donate much of their money. And they want to enjoy their meals without having pictures of starving children flashing before their inner eyes.

If as a junior editor, you push topics such as the moral scandal of children in Africa dying from malnutrition or easily preventable diseases, you will never become editor-in-chief, and if you are editor-in-chief and don't keep such topics off the front page, you will sooner or later be fired by your publisher because the circulation of your tabloid or newspaper will drop, and that is contrary to the duties of the editor-in-chief.

Now compare this with some juicy stories about tourists in Asia who get caught with child prostitutes. In principle, for tabloid buyers who are not satisfied with their own sex lives, nothing is a better read than stories about other people who are in real trouble for having sex. It's the ultimate vindication for those who don't have sex.

Which is why rather recently, a British tabloid spent a lot of money on the tracking down of Gary Glitter in Vietnam.

It's not that the newspaper acted out of genuine moral concern. It's the story. If they would be concerned with genuine moral issues, they would send their reporters to Africa to produce stories about children who slowly suffer to death on a teaspoon of nutrition a day, which feeds intestinal worms more than it feeds the children.

I do want to point out the important function people like Mr. S ... have for the media, especially the tabloid media, and, by extension, their instrumental role in creating severe distortions in the moral perception of the media-consuming public. These moral distortions would be further cemented if somebody like Mr. S ... were to receive a major award.

If we agree that not a collection of commandments of a perceived supranational being is the foundation of modern ethics but the recognition of the needless suffering of other beings, than there are millions of worse fates in this world, here and today, than the fates of some child prostitutes who roam the streets of a Third World city and enjoy a high degree of personal freedom and a good amount of money which they typically perceive as easily earned.

Among the many cases that are worse fates but do not get as much attention from moral crusaders:

1. As mentioned previously, the plight of children dying of hunger and easily preventable diseases in Africa.

2. Those in captivity and tortured in prisons anywhere around the world. In most countries of the world, prison guards have a free hand in mistreating inmates.

3. People experiencing slow and painful deaths from diseases even in Europe and North America.

4. The suffering of people who are paralyzed for decades and more or less forgotten in some closed institutions.

Of course, if these people are not children, they are less appealing to our sense of sympathy. But yes, adults can suffer more than children. This should be kept morally in perspective.

From the perspective of modern ethics, the fact that there are child prostitutes in Third World countries is a minor dilemma.

My criticism of Mr. S ... (and organizations like Ecpat) does not focus on what they are doing but on what they are not doing. Their posture (including their claim for the widest media coverage possible) is of those who are occupying the highest moral ground, dedicating their lives to the noblest of all causes, saving children from "sexual predators". They also adopt a posture of moral unassailability.

But to claim the highest moral merit, one has to address the worst ethical problems (the worst suffering of other beings), and the further down one goes on this scale, the more an ethical problem becomes a pet project.

It doesn't fit the moral high ground if those addressing ethical problems are overly seeking public attention for their good deeds. No other ethical issue is as suited for a "doing good" ego trip as is social work with child prostitutes, as no other topic receives such easy and prominent media coverage.

Compared to other ethical problems, doing social work with child prostitutes also requires little personal sacrifice.

If you work with dying children in Africa, you feel compelled to donate a lot of your personal wealth to saving children. A single dollar you spend can mean a child will be saved.

But if your morality consists of tracking down Western customers of child prostitutes, than you can be personally rich and still claim moral fame.

And this is not a setting that should be supported by international moral awards.