Saudia Arabian Oil Reserve Destroyed in Terrorist Attack, "Government Officials" Reveal to "Press Corps"

Story By Emily Yung/Photos by Joy Hong
M & M staffers

A hypothetical simulation occurred Wednesday when an oil plant, Ras Tenura, in Saudi Arabia was attacked and destroyed at 8:44 a.m. by Al Qaeda terrorists. The destruction of Ras Tenura caused gas prices to almost double in the United States, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 900 points. Further details were released, saying one American had died—the Director of Homeland Security.
Ras Tenura shipped 4 million barrels of oil to the United States every day. With this major supplier damaged, more oil is being shipped to the United States from Nigeria and other sources.
Although this event was a simulation, it helped two classes at Duke TIP learn more about each of their topics. The Media and Message class had a mock press conference with the American Foreign Policy class about this situation.
The Media and Message class pretended to be reporters from their hometown newspapers. The students in the Foreign Policy class were assigned to various roles, such as members of the President’s cabinet and the various national security agencies.
This press conference went on for about an hour, with the reporters asking questions and getting answers about the attack at Ras Tenura, including information about the actual event, the death toll and how it affected the United States.
This simulation was created by the American Foreign Policy teacher, Matthew Clary. Clary has worked hard throughout the entire term to prepare his students. During class, he covered the rise of China, Iranian nuclear programs, America’s dependence on oil, domestic threats and response to terrorist threats. All of those subjects were brought up during the press conference.
“Basically, every single day we prepared a little bit by little bit. We did threat assessments each day that function as 20 minute long versions of the simulation, so in the course of the term they really sufficiently prepared for this,” Clary said when asked how he helped his students prepare for the event.
At the end of the conference, Clary said that he was “really impressed by the answers and the questions.” He also described the press conference as “successful, but if the only problem was accuracy, then that’s something we can talk about in a lesson.”
Not only did people from the Foreign Policy class learn from this opportunity, students in the Media and Message class did too. Kelly Castro, 16, describes the experience as “cool and fun.” She says that this conference was different from the other interviews that she had done before because it was more interactive and it was with other TIPsters.
When asked about how it helped her as a student in Media and Message, Castro said that it helped her learn how journalists get information out of political figures and deal with situations where some of the information is confidential.
Emily Kruse, 16, played the role of the President. She admitted that at first she was intimidated because she was scared that she wasn’t going to be able to make the right decisions, but it was okay because she had a lot of help from other cabinet members. When asked what she did to prepare for the event, Kruse responded with a laugh.

“I took some Advil the night before!” she joked.
Based on all the students’ comments, the mock press conference was a good learning experience for everyone who participated.

“Everyone worked together and I liked it,” Kruse said.