Do you have the wit of a New Yorker cartoonist, or the insight of The Economist? Or, like in the movie Spotlight, are you as incisive a detective as the Boston Globe reporters? Have you always dreamed of holding our leaders accountable, and making them fear the consequences of their abuses of power? Are you the sworn enemy of shady schemers and evil conspirators? Do you rage not against the Machine, but against political correctness? Or do you simply obsess over every single news story or piece of gossip you come across? Then, developing your investigative skills as a journalist at a Crisis Simulation is the perfect opportunity for you!
And you can be sure, TICS 2017 in beautiful Tübingen will be the perfect place to develop these journalistic skills. This year’s edition of TICS sees us tackling a highly unstable political situation in a hotly contested region: the Asian periphery, more specifically the South China Sea, and the possible escalation of an already volatile status quo in North Korea. The actors at play will be the governments of Japan, the United States, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea and China, and who better to keep these giants in check than a well-organized team of devoted reporters?
Regardless of whether your writing style reminds you more of the yellow press than well-sourced investigative reporting, we welcome all types of writers and creative minds in our media team. After all, TICS 2017 will have both a tabloid, The Panda Bear, and a broadsheet newspaper, The Southeast Asian Times. With the crack teams that these publications are bound to get together, the TICS 2017 media should be able to provide reading material to suit the whole political spectrum, from tin foil hat wearers to suited-up corporate cogs.
So if you’re ready for your imaginative pieces to be the talk of the town, don’t hesitate to apply to the Media Team of TICS 2017!
Disclaimer: The TICS 2017 Editors-In-Chief waive all legal responsibility should you find yourself locked away in a DPRK prison during this simulation. Nevertheless, they do promise to write extensively and scathingly about it.
The Panda Bear will represent the lurid tabloid-style news body for the broader public. Articles are short with strong headlines, interviews serve to underline stark opinions instead of requesting the truth, investigation is superficial and focuses on rumours and big stories/scandals.
Editor-in-Chief: Ana Victoria Martín Corral
Ana is a 5th year medical student from the historical university town of Salamanca, Spain, where she caught the MUN virus while participating in MUNUSAL. This pesky virus has recently turned her into one of those people she used to side-eye, the ones who attend an alarming number of conferences per year. One of those conferences happened to be the first edition of TICS, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She is very happy to come back to Tuebingen for TICS 2017, this time as Editor-In-Chief. This will be her second time in this role, and she hopes to make the press accessible and fun for everyone. Currently on her Erasmus year in Florence, Ana likes to sleep in, book flights, eat cupcakes, and pet any dog who lets her.
The Southeast Asian Times will represent a rather professional high-level broadsheet-style news body. Articles are longer, interviews rather serious, investigation is deep and looks for evidence rather than rumours.
Editor-in-Chief: Simon Bosmans
Ever since he was 10, Simon’s life has been most marked by the places he’s travelled to, the people he’s met there, and the friends he has made in the process. He has visited the savannas of Benin and the salt deserts of Bolivia, worked on a humanitarian aid project in the Congo, been on exchange in the US for almost a year, lived in Paris and Berlin, and attended quite a few MUN conferences all over Europe when he could spare a few days. And incidentally, it’s these last few MUN trips that have turned out to be the ones Simon has enjoyed the most, because they let him indulge in all of his passions, whether it’s travel, diplomacy or cheesy country-based pick-up lines.
However, when he’s not doing who-knows-what abroad, Simon lives and studies in Leuven, a small but fierce Belgian university town OBVIOUSLY most known for its MUN association (KULMUN), which he’s been part of since his first year at uni. In Leuven, apart from debating with KULMUN, Simon is starting his Master’s Degree in Comparative and International Politics this year. But most importantly, he will co-head the media team at TICS 2017 and can’t wait to meet you all in November!
These two bodies together constitute our press team, which will convoy all of the cabinets’ sessions, provide delegates with useful information beyond the sessions, hold press conferences and interviews and serve as a tool for crisis managers to spread important news that also concern the broader public. The Editors-in-Chief will have the main responsibility for one of the two bodies each.
Participants serve as journalists of one of the two bodies here. During Registration, you can indicate your news body preference in the voluntary field after their council preferences.