MUNITY-East

By Jae Lee, Korea International School

Photo cred: Cindy Song of Tokyo Intl. School

Among the hundreds of delegates representing 70 different schools at THIMUN-Singapore, there are only 31 students and 3 advisors on the press team, which covers everything that happens at Hwa Chong Institution. The press team, consisting of well-

trained reporters, designers, artists, and photographers from 21 different countries, brings the news to you through the daily newspaper MunityEast. You may see them around with cameras taking photos and interviewing delegates, or scurrying around inthe morning persuading you to buy a newspaper (they’re just one dollar!). Once when buying newspapers, a school’s advisor asked them: “How do you guys do it? Do you work all night?” Though our diligent press members do exert much effort into their work, sleepless nights and deepening eye bags are not the secret ingredients to producing our glamorous publications. A scoop inside the press room will show you that organization and cooperation are key to providing you with the most updated newspapers every day.

The press team, just like the delegates, start their day off bright and early at 9 A.M. Reporters and photographers, led by editors Angie Jo, Elissa Lee, and Karen Sims, receive their assignments in the morning

and leave to conduct interviews, record information, and take photographs throughout the day. Layout editor Alex Zhang, creates templates and discusses design elements with his talented crew as they wait for finished articles, photographs, and artwork to arrive. Artists are assigned pieces of art that play off their strengths, which may include digital art, black and white art, pen and ink art, or hand-drawn artwork.

After lunch, most of the finished articles and artwork arrives in the hands of the layout crew. Responsible for putting the whole newspaper together, the six-member layout team works together to pair artwork and photographs with written articles and create the colorful and uniquely designed newspapers. Within three hours, the layout crew puts everything together and hands it to the publisher at 4 PM to be printed and delivered the following morning.

With each new edition of Munity East, the same content is posted to the online newspaper at www.munity-east.com. From this site, you can also access episodes of METV and the application for the THIMUN 2012 press team.

Creating a newspaper isn’t as easy as one would expect. It involves cooperation, meeting deadlines, and oftentimes, hair loss from frustration-induced hair pulls. So the next time you step off the bus in the morning and see a bunch of students attempting to sell you a newspaper, buy it. After all, it’s only a dollar.