Membership drops 30 percent

September 10, 2009, Posted by Reinbold at 6:01 pm

Members attend the reunion reception.

By Blair Mishleau
Insight Staff Writer

As the NLGJA convention makes its first trip abroad, it is attracting fewer than 200 members to our neighbor to the north, which might be an all-time low for the organization.

Officials are expecting about 165 attendees for the Montreal meeting, not including on-site registration and other last-minute bookings. The first national convention, in 1992, drew 300 people. Previous conferences have attracted almost 700.

The organization also continues to struggle with membership retention. NLGJA Managing Director Michael Tune said the group has about 750 members, a 30 percent drop from August 2008, when there were 1,073. In August 2007, there were 1,247.

“Membership has been dropping, as we can tell, in all journalism associations, because journalists themselves are losing their jobs,” Tune said. “We have been very fortunate, our membership has held steady for the last few months now.”

Amid the shrinking roster and the news industry’s troubles, NLGJA has sought to reorganize itself.

“The industry is going through a lot of changes, changes that have accelerated over the last couple of years,” said NLGJA president David Steinberg. “The horrible economy hasn’t helped.”

One of the biggest changes is the elimination of the executive and deputy executive director positions. David Barre left the role of executive director this year, and Tom Avila, deputy executive, left Aug. 28. Five other staff members have left in recent years. None of the other employees were dismissed; rather, they resigned over time and NLGJA decided not to hire more employees as a cost-cutting measure, said Steinberg.

Tune began in May, and office administrator Bach Polakowski joined this year.

“I guess the key thing is that we’re not the same organization we were, [but] we still have the same core values,” Steinberg said.

One of the ways the organization has tried to retain members and gain new ones is the “friends membership,” which offers discounted membership to someone who has recently lost his or her job.

“It’s kind of frustrating in some ways … we did a lot things right, and we really planned ahead, and we were really ahead of the curve, but the way the economy slammed, specifically the media industry, was more than anyone could have foreseen,” said Steinberg.

“In some cases, our sponsors don’t exist anymore … a lot of them were Fannie Mae, General Motors. The horrible economy has a very clear impact on us.”

Another issue for the organization is having the convention abroad, amid a shaky journalism industry. For most attendees, the cost of international travel is more expensive than staying in the states.

Steinberg and Tune could not immediately confirm whether this convention would have the lowest attendance in NLGJA history. According to an NLGJA timeline from 2005, the organization reached its highest turnout at the New York convention in 2004, at almost 700 attendees.

NLGJA might be charged again for not fulfilling its room block at the Hyatt Regency Montreal. The group faced a similar problem with its conference in Washington last year.

“We renegotiated the [Hyatt] contract within the last year, and so we did try to act to avoid some of the problems. We lowered the room block commitment and made some changes to the space we needed, and things like that,” Steinberg said. “That being said, we’re not going to hit our room block.”

Next year’s conference is set to be in San Francisco, where the organization held its first national convention. Organizers said they hope that returning to San Francisco for NLGJA’s 20th anniversary will improve attendance. Steinberg said a number of members he spoke with who couldn’t attend this year were quick to say “but I’m going to be in San Francisco next year.”

Roy Aarons founded NLGJA in 1990, shortly after coming out himself.

Tune said members should look to their past as a volunteer-led organization and rely on themselves to succeed.

“This organization was started as a grass-roots effort,” said Tune. “I want members to know that this is not that time to sit back down. This is the time to dig in and help build this organization as it was built back then.”