Letter from the Editor in Chief of the Press

							Letter from the Editor-in-Chief of the Press Corps
1 December, 2008

Dear Delegates,

         Welcome to the MUNUC XXI Press Corps, and congratulations for being selected for this
unique MUNUC organization!
         My name is Andreea Mihai, although you can call me “Andi.” I’m a third-year biology
major, but I’ve always been interested in politics and international relations. I participated in
MUNUC in high school, and I continue to in college. After coming to the University of Chicago, I
joined all three MUN -related student organizations as soon as I could and stuck with them. I have
two jobs on top of that: I work for a lab that focuses on women’s health, an issue that is
extremely important to me and a possible direction for my future career, and I am a teaching
assistant for a calculus class at the University of Chicago.
         I’m really excited to be heading Press Corps again this year! Last year was really
wonderful – we put out a great newspaper and learned a lot along the way. I think that journalists
serve an extremely important role in society, as they are the means by which the public gets most
of its information. Nevertheless, their role is so much greater than simple distribution of facts.
War Photographer, a movie that I highly recommend, does a great job of presenting the
implications of reporting. Christiane Amanpour summarized the true duties of a journalist really
well when she pointed out that the way you tell a story is often just as important as the
information that you give. As a journalist, you are not only responsible for what the public
knows, but for how they think about the news and how they relate themselves to that
information.
         As such, I hope that by participating on the Press Corps, you’ll develop the skills to
report information in a way that engages, informs, and motivates your audience to make an
impact on society. It is essential that as journalists, you keep in mind at all times that reporting is
much more than regurgitating information; it is a way of molding the opinions of the public. A
well written piece can have a deep impact on a readership, for example, as a criticism of a
government, an advocacy of a policy, or simply by providing a thought experiment.
         At the same time, I want you all to have fun with this! The coffee table in my apartment
has the latest issue of the Economist right next to the issue of US Weekly just after Britney
shaved her head. There’s so much fun to be had in news!

I look forward to seeing everyone in a few months!

Andi Mihai

Editor-in-Chief, Press Corps
pc@munuc.org