D.C. to host 2014 AAJA national convention

Bye bye, Concrete Jungle. Hello, the District.

When the AAJA convention returns to Washington next year, there will be plenty to look forward to, national and chapter leaders say.

“Strategically, as news organizations, what better place than D.C. can we be?” said AAJA national president Paul Cheung, adding that it was a contender from the start of the location conversation.

Major media companies and cable television channels, including C-SPAN, NPR and BET, have headquarters in the area. And, of course, the district is home to The Washington Post, whose investigative reporting exposed the Watergate scandal.

Members of AAJA D.C., the fourth-largest chapter, are affiliated with nearly every major news outlet with a presence in the capital, said Seung Min Kim, chapter president and congressional reporter at Politico. Convention organizers plan to incorporate political journalism into the programming.

For attendees who may not have visited the nation’s capital since UNITY in 2004 or the last AAJA convention there in 1992, there’s plenty of fun to be found, too.

“The Newseum is a fantastic museum dedicated to the news media,” Kim said. “And for the best food in the area, walk along the 14th Street corridor in the Logan Circle neighborhood — there seems to be a new restaurant opening every week, and they are all fantastic. Ethiopian food in D.C. is also a must-try.”