When I woke up this morning feeling groggy, my mind felt as if it was in a different continent altogether. Still, I had a relatively pleasant start to the day with an email from the legendary journalist Tina Brown. I recently subscribed to her Substack, which I encourage you all to do, as she has so many interesting things to say. As is to be expected from the ex-editor in chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, which celebrated its 100th birthday at the end of February. 

In the newsletter, Brown recited a brief eulogy or, more accurately, a celebration of life for The New Yorker, starting with her taking over the magazine and ending with her final day and a “perfect” edition of the magazine. 

As I and the rest of the 2024 editorial board are also spending our final few days at Harbingers’ magazine, I thought it was fitting for us to have a little celebration of our work over the past year. I had hoped that we could also celebrate a birthday – perhaps an early fifth birthday. But alas, there would be no such coincidence, with August 2026 being just a tad too far away.

So, as the snow begins to melt around frosty Connecticut where I live, and spring is, hopefully, finally beginning to dawn in the northern hemisphere, let’s take a look back at our past year at Harbingers’. This is in no way a complete or conclusive set of thoughts and opinions from everyone involved, but just a few musings, which I believe the staff and our readers might appreciate and have a laugh at.

Let’s start with Jefferson He, our editor-in-chief, who has kept all the section editors and staff writers in check with his lovely emails, making sure our words and ideas aren’t lost in the great wilderness of Gmail and Google Docs. 

He is undoubtedly equipped with one of the strangest profile pictures on Harbingers’ – a 480-pixel blurry mess that sure wasn’t helpful in putting a face to a name when we finally met in person. But his photo does sum up his wittiness, his willingness to be the brunt of a joke to bolster our morale, and, of course, the character of a human we call our EIC. 

Much love and thanks to Cath Philips, our managing editor and mentor to each one of us on the board. Our weekly meetings made otherwise dreary afternoons much more exciting and took my mind off things just a little bit. There was no shortage of British sarcasm, which was always welcome and will be greatly missed. 

Although our staff writers might not have liked the incessant request for citations and links to sources, she was there to clean up and fix and turn even the messiest of articles into beautiful and wonderful pieces worthy of a Sunday afternoon read at any family lunch. 

And here’s to our other mentors and publishing team.

Kimberly Yanez, our project coordinator and my first tutor, who gave me the rundown on journalism that so many of us students have gotten, as well as the structure to the magazine that goes severely underappreciated. An unorganised magazine is not a functioning one. 

Our academic director and tutor Tatev Hovhannisyan, who could make any room, no matter how tired or hungry or bored, laugh and smile. I didn’t have the privilege to be her student, but I’m sure many others would be able to attest to her ability to teach and inspire.

Our current publisher, tutor, and podcasting guru Lucy Martirosyan, who just vibed with everyone around them, and also manages our Armenian newsroom.

Our former Afghanistan newsroom instructor Sarah Hussein (others cover Nepal and Sri Lanka), and former publisher Emily Whitehouse, who gave the Harbingers’ website the beautiful and iconic yellow that we associate with it every time we click onto it. And to the many other mentors who I have not personally interacted with, but all work tirelessly behind the scenes to make Harbingers’ what it is. 

Finally, a few of my personal favourite articles that I’ve read, edited and written. My 50th birthday: A world without food got me to Harbingers’, and is still one of the best things I’ve ever written. Decoding Bidenomics, by our economics editor, Camilla Savelieva, which was so insightful and informative, especially from the perspective of a non-American. 

Our culture editor Justin Sau’s interviews in Washington, DC (which I was beyond jealous of when he showed us the pictures afterwards) alongside his great American narrative of retracing Steinbeck’s steps in The Grapes of Wrath, are some of the most interesting pieces Harbingers’ has published. 

Not to mention some of the most beautiful pictures too, like this one: