By Frank Bi
Voices

Before the AAJA Detroit convention ends, AAJA’s national board plans to select the location for the 2013 convention. So far, it’s been a bust.

Already, Detroit’s convention numbers are showing lackluster results: 379 attendees were registered as of Tuesday, when expectations were much higher – around 600.

In previous years, individual chapters made bids to host the convention as early as two years ahead of time, but this year, no chapter has thrown its hat in the ring yet, said Kathy Chow, AAJA’s executive director.

The lack of interest in hosting the 2013 AAJA convention may signal a change in the convention model, which may include partnering with a different media organizations or hosting the national convention at a university as a way to reduce costs. In addition, chapters may have to do more to shoulder the burden of hosting a convention, by pushing more and more of their members to attend.

For the first time, AAJA earlier this year imposed a minimum quota for registered convention attendees for each chapter.

The quota was considered a voluntary goal, with no consequences for not meeting it, Chow said.

Only seven chapters matched or surpassed their quota, but AAJA fell short of the goal to have 550 convention registrations from chapter members. Only 379 chapter members registered.

The Los Angeles chapter, which hosted the national convention last year, was given a quota of 127 registrants, but only 36 had registered, as of Tuesday.

Michigan surpassed its quota of 17, with 31 members registered as of Tuesday.

“There’s concern that unless you hold it in a major city, where there is a lot of AAJA members in the area, attendance will be hurt,” said Ameet Sachdev, president of the AAJA Chicago chapter.

Those areas are mainly on the East and West coasts.

“People are spending their own money to attend these,” said Sachdev, adding that it’s hard to hold conventions in cities like Detroit, which are not considered destination or ideal vacation cities.

Since 2012 is a UNITY year, when three of the four minority journalism organizations forfeit their own gatherings to consolidate in Las Vegas, talks have emerged about partnering with another association for the convention in 2013 and has been incorporated in the strategic plan.

The strategic plan is a five-year road map as part of an effort to retool the convention, said Abe Kwok, an AAJA national board member.

The Radio and Television News Directors Association and the National Association of Hispanics Journalists have approached AAJA about sharing the convention, Kwok said.

Combining conventions “makes financial sense,” Kwok said. “But more importantly, it allows AAJA and the partner associations to bring better programs and speakers to the convention.”

One of the biggest obstacles in organizing the convention is the hotel accommodations, Chow said.

“The problem with doing hotels is that you get locked into contracts,” Chow said. “We’re looking at all the different options.”

Hosting the national convention at a university, as opposed to a convention center like Detroit’s Cobo Center, also is in the discussion, Chow said. It also could cut down on costs, Kwok said.

“We have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for audio and visual equipment needs,” he said. “If we can eliminate that cost by having it at a university, then it gives AAJA more flexibility.”

Chow said the average cost of hosting a convention is between $300,000 and $400,000.

The budgeted cost for this year’s AAJA convention was about $400,000, said AAJA treasurer Rene Astudillo.

The idea of hosting a convention on a university campus is not new. The American Copy Editors Society held its national conference at Arizona State University in Phoenix earlier this year.

Besides tapping the resources of a university’s journalism school, including easy access to professors who could serve as panelists, hotel costs also could be drastically eliminated by housing convention goers in on-campus housing.

“These are challenging times for journalism and the media and for the people who work in it,” Kwok said. “Whatever changes we can make at the convention level to make it a better experience, we need to do that.”

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