About the convention

The National High School Journalism Convention, presented each fall and spring, is the nation’s largest gathering of high school journalists, advisers and journalism teachers.

Fall conventions are typically in early to mid-November. Spring conventions are early to mid-April. Conventions start on Thursday and conclude on Saturday/Sunday.

Conventions are presented in cities from coast to coast, with convention hotels and convention centers as sites. Washington, D.C., and Chicago are regular locations, with other sites from Seattle to Orlando, from Los Angeles to Boston.

The convention offers hundreds of instructional sessions, keynote speakers from national newsmakers, dozens of media critiques, JEA’s popular on-site media contests and the announcement of NSPA national winners for Pacemaker Awards and Individual Awards. NSPA also offers a convention Best of Show competition that celebrates current student media work.

Connecting with the attendees will be dozens of sponsoring vendors, at an exhibit area in the primary gathering space. Sponsors include companies with products and services for student media, collegiate journalism programs with opportunities for students, and organizations seeking to connect with the scholastic journalism community.

Convention registration rates are per student and per adviser, with significant early bird discounts for NSPA member students and JEA member advisers. Fall registration typically opens by mid-September, and spring registration typically opens in late January.

Attendees also make their own hotel reservations, first come, first served, at dates announced on the convention sites. Attendees are encouraged to stay in the convention hotel, to be near all convention activities and to support the organizations that have negotiated the hotel rate.

Journalism Education Association is the largest scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers. Put simply, we educate teachers on how to educate students.

We fulfill this goal through numerous activities: We provide training around the country at national conventions and conferences. We offer national certification for teaching high school journalism. We publish print and online resources on the latest trends in journalism education. We provide avenues for virtual discussion among teachers, as well as curriculum and mentoring to learn best practices. We monitor and actively defend First Amendment and scholastic press rights issues across the country.

Among JEA’s more than 2,600 members are journalism teachers and publications advisers, media professionals, press associations, adviser organizations, libraries, publishing companies, newspapers, radio stations and departments of journalism.

Since 1924, JEA has been leading the way in scholastic journalism and media education.

Journalism Education Association
014 Kedzie Hall
828 Mid-Campus Drive S
Manhattan, KS 66506-1505