Press at AASBMUN 2019

By H. Prado

During the first weekend of September, the AASB MUN conference took place at Chapel School. This was the 21st edition of AASB and 14 different schools participated, resulting in the creation of ten different committees. Exceptionally, the Press Corps delegates attended the event, who were in charge of covering the media coverage of the three-day conference.

Led by Carolina Bartunek, the Press Corps was divided into two sections: the audio-visual team, which consisted of photographers that worked tirelessly to take pictures of all committee sessions, and filmmakers, who recorded crises and displayed a video at the closing ceremony. The other section was the media agencies, in which delegates had to write articles according to the bias of real-life agencies, including Fox News, The Guardian, Russia Today, IRNA, Granma and o Globo. For example, when writing about the committee they were assigned to, media agencies had to favour the opinion of the country they belonged to and adapt according to agency they were writing for.

This year, the main difference adopted was the press conferences, which had the intent of uniting the press team with the delegates. During committee sessions, the press team would come into each committee and ask delegates questions regarding their resolutions.  This was a huge success and Press Corps director, Carolina Bartunek, mentioned that, in contrast to previous years when the press was in the side-lines, "this year press was at the center, the center of attention in the middle of the committees, taking part, adding to the debates."

Delegates were assigned a committee that they were obligated to write about, but they also had the chance to write a second piece on whatever interested them the most. After watching the heated debates, the press team would write articles about committees, crises or even the occurrences of conferences, which were later published on a platform called “Medium”. By downloading the app, scouring their website and typing in “Press Corps AASB MUN 2019”, the articles written by delegates can be found and read. This is a great opportunity for the delegates as well as those interested in participating next year and wish to have more insights in each conference.  
During the closing ceremony, awards were distributed to delegates that put most effort into the debate, wrote the best pieces and created the videos. St Paul's press delegates were very successful, a special mention to Julia Nemr, Sofia Azzam and Laura Maksoud who won awards for their performance. 
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Overall, being a member of the press corps is taking the possibility to write articles like real life media agencies do and to report on global issues being discussed. This is an enriching experience even for those who do not wish to become journalists or photographers, but for anyone who wishes to learn how to write from different points of view.