Indianapolis - Jul 20, 2009 - The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) will collaborate with the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) to hold a joint convention in 2011. The groups hope to more efficiently serve their members and journalists with the partnered effort. The SPJ will have its own convention 2009 and 2010. The 2009 SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference will be held Aug. 27-30 in Indianapolis. The RTNDA had its 2009 annual convention in April. The RTNDA will hold its 2010 convention in conjunction with the NAB Show.

The RTNDA has held its convention with the NAB Show since 2002. Before that, the RTNDA had partnered its convention with the NAB Radio Show and also the World Media Expo, a joint convention of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, the NAB and the RTNDA.

The RTNDA and the SPJ are in the initial discussion stages of holding the joint convention in 2011. A city for the conference, as well as specifics of programming the event, still need to be agreed upon.