In the vast expanse of the THIMUN conference center was a team of students hidden in the far back of the West Wing, within the Europe 1 & 2 rooms. It was there, where they spent hours on end writing and documenting every latest issue, gossip, and news that was buzzing in the halls of The Hague’s 51st annual MUN conference. Many saw glimpses of them in the running up and down the stairs with a camera slung around their neck or a pen and notepad on either side. Every morning they could be found, standing at the entrance of the conference hall with that day’s copy of the newspaper in their hand, egging passersby to buy the paper and “be an informed delegate”. This was the MUNITY Press Team.

The press team is split up into five categories: editors, reporters, layout, artwork, and photography. Last year, I was accepted as one of the Layout Editors. However, I wanted to explore the other areas of the press team. Without any further ado, I applied as a reporter for THIMUN 2019. I found my name at the top of the list of names of reporters (albeit it was sorted in alphabetical order)

Working with the MUNITY press team was extraordinary. By discussing and brainstorming with other students from around the world, it broadened my knowledge of international issues and current events. The topics of our articles were quite challenging too. Many of us had written essays and articles for our respective school newspapers, but this time we were reporting in real time. Running around the conference hall in heels (which is not recommendable), looking for stories for tomorrow’s issue and communicating with delegates as well as chairs was quite an enjoyable experience for us.

But everyone’s favorite time of the day was in the morning. Even though we had to come to the conference an hour earlier than everyone else, we were always excited, since we could sell the papers to the incoming delegates. From January 28 to February 1, every member of the press team came up with new ways to appeal to our customers and not to freeze to death in the process. These included creating slogans, complimenting, and changing our formal shoes to boots when the supervisors were not looking. Many members of our own MUN delegations came up to us too and bought an issue every single day. Needless to say, we sold out often.

Over the span of the five days of THIMUN 2019, I got to write seven articles ranging from an interview with the Dutch political cartoonist and Editor in Chief of Cartoonmovement.com, Tjeerd Royaards, to an Opinion piece based on the threatened job security caused by the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. On the last day of the conference, I even got the privilege of writing a front-page article on the reactions and criticisms from THIMUN participants of a new phone policy, which was added in this year’s conference. Overall, I’d say that this was a quite successful week.

As there will be another THIMUN conference in 2020, I highly encourage anyone interested in journalism to come to the FISH and learn about the activity in detail and try their luck by submitting an application too. If you’re curious about the kinds of articles that are written in MUNITY, you should also check out the MUN board in front of Ms. Marquand’s room, where you can find my articles to use as a reference.