Posts by Marlena Telvick

Investigations by five UC Berkeley Journalism alums have won top honors in the 2025 IRE Awards. The annual contest showcases exemplary work by members of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) from the past year. Two other alums, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the same reporting, were named finalists. Since 1979, the IRE Awards have…

UC Berkeley Journalism alumni Susie Neilson (’19) at the San Francisco Chronicle, Garance Burke (’04) at The Associated Press and Kathleen Hennessey (’04) at the Minnesota Star Tribune were named 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners by the Pulitzer Board at Columbia University today. Another eight Berkeley Journalism alumni were honored as part of award-winning or finalist…

Eleonora Bianchi (’22) and Leah Rosenbaum (’19) have been named finalists in the 2026 INNY Awards, honoring the best in nonprofit newsgathering. Judges comments: For “Hidden In Plain Sight,” a contender for the Insight Award for Visual Journalism in the Medium division, the New Bedford Light took a creative risk. Photos of residents of a…

Investigative reporter Sonner Kehrt (’18) of The War Horse, a national nonprofit newsroom covering the military has been awarded the 2026 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from Columbia Journalism School, recognizing outstanding achievements in reporting on racial or religious hatred, intolerance or discrimination in the United States. 2026 Tobenkin Award Jurors’ Citation: The 2026 Paul Tobenkin…

Greetings, Berkeley J-School alums. We’ve got lots of great stuff for you in our spring newsletter, from an interview with Andra Cernavskis (’15) about pivoting to First Amendment law to some upcoming events you won’t want to miss. Plus, there’s still time to nominate someone for one of the new J-School alumni awards. Let’s get…

Three Class of 2025 audio producers—Negar Ajayebi, Hussain Khan, and Aisha Wallace-Palomares—won Best Narrative Podcast at the Society of Professional Journalists regional Mark of Excellence Awards for collegiate journalism. They secured the honor for their work on Berkeley Journalism’s flagship radio show and podcast, North Gate Radio. “Home is Where the Harmony Is,” an audio…

  Andra Cernavskis likes to consider herself a Californian-Canadian hybrid, being from Toronto, Canada but having spent most of her life in the Bay Area. After graduating from the J-School in 2015, she worked at Discovery Digital Networks, a news platform start-up called Happs News, and then at Twitter, where she worked on the misinformation…

UC Berkeley Journalism alums were nominated for 2025 Peabody Awards last week for reporting that spans housing, the environment, economics and criminal justice. The nominees in the 86th annual awards showcase “the most compelling and impactful stories” in broadcasting and streaming media and are selected by a board of jurors from more than 1,000 entries.…

Over the last 50 years, awards of every stripe have been bestowed upon our video and documentary alums, but this year’s News & Documentary Emmy Awards announcement from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has broken records. Showrunner and Executive Producer Jeffrey Plunkett (’05) received a whopping 25 nominations for the final season…