The Journalism Department is pleased to announce two new awards honoring alumni from the program. The Distinguished Journalism Alumnus will be awarded to Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute. The Journalism Alumnus of the Year will be awarded to Martin Reynolds, editor of the Oakland Tribune and assisting managing editor of the Bay Area News Group, East Bay. The awards will be presented at the Journalism Department's graduation recognition event on Sunday, May 25 in McKenna Theater.

The department will also host an alumni reception for Finberg and Reynolds on Friday, May 23, at 7 p.m. at Delancey Street Restaurant, 600 Embarcadero. Alumni from the Journalism Department are invited to attend.

Finberg, who has been with the Poynter Institute since 2003, developed and now directs its News University, an online training portal for journalists. Before joining Poynter, Finberg enjoyed a long career as an editor at several papers including the Arizona Republic, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. While at the Republic Finberg launched the creation of the award-winning online service, Arizona Central, www.azcentral.com. He later co-founded and served as managing director of Finberg-Gentry, the Digital Futurist Consultancy. The firm helped media companies develop strategies and publishing technologies for the Internet. He was also a corporate vice president at Central Newspapers before it was sold to Gannett. Finberg graduated from San Francisco State in 1971.

Reynolds, who grew up in Berkeley, started at the Oakland Tribune as a Chips Quinn intern in 1995. He's been with the paper since then moving his way up as a metro reporter, assistant city editor, associate editor for special projects, and managing editor.

Reynolds has led the Tribune newsroom on a series of special projects and initiatives including the Chauncey Bailey Project, an ongoing investigative series examining the circumstances surrounding the murder of the Oakland Post editor and former Tribune reporter. He also headed the project, Not Just a Number, an award-winning online series that showed the impact of Oakland's increasing murder rate on families and neighborhoods. He has also worked with SFSU's Journalism Department and University of California, Berkeley to develop mentoring and work programs for journalism students.