By:  Bob Rucker, Director, School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Breaking News: Two JMC School faculty members and two SJSU journalism graduates are among this year’s top Society of Professional
Journalists ( SPJ ) – Northern California Awards announced October 1st.

Among the distinguished honorees…
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO JOURNALISM

Lloyd LaCuesta, KTVU-TV. Veteran reporter, Edward R. Murrow Award recipient, and six-time Northern California Emmy Award winner Lloyd LaCuesta receives the SPJ-NorCal Board of Directors’ Distinguished Service to Journalism Award.

LaCuesta retired this year from his position as South Bay bureau chief for KTVU Channel 2 News after 35 years of reporting for the station.
SPJ honors LaCuesta not only for his multiple award-winning breaking news coverage over the years, but also for his pioneering role in
helping to bring more minorities into the field of journalism during his career. LaCuesta was the first national president of the Asian
American Journalists Association. He was also one of the founders, and the first national president, of UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc.

JOURNALISM INNOVATION

San José State University new media/photography professor Kim Komenich and Professor Kim Grinfeder’s University of Miami Spring 2012 interactive storytelling class for their “living documentary” project. The project took the subjects of Komenich’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the 1986 Philippine “People Power” revolution and used innovative social media techniques to tell where they are now.

SJSU Journalism Graduates Honored

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle, and Hank Plante, KPIX-TV

FEATURE STORYTELLING (TV/video daily): Dai Sugano, San Jose Mercury News, for “Lost Voices of September 11,” which interviews 10 years
later the friends and family who left messages on the cell phone of United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Mark Bingham, hoping to hear he was alive.