The National Society of Newspaper Columnists announced the finalists for its annual awards yesterday. Among those honored: LA Weekly‘s Gendy Alimurung in the “General Interest (print) over 50,000 circulation” category. She’s up against Derrick Z. Jackson of The Boston Globe and Dave Lieber of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

For the second year in a row Roger Ebert is up for an award in the “Blog and Multimedia over 100,000 monthly unique visitors” category. He took the honor last year.

Winners will be announced May 5.

Full list of finalists after the jump:

• General Interest (print) over 50,000 circulation: Gendy Alimurung, LA Weekly: Derrick Z. Jackson, The Boston Globe: Dave Lieber, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
• Humor (print) over 50,000 circulation: Samantha Bennett, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Kathy Eliscu, Raising Maine, Portland: Alice Laussade, Dallas Observer.
• General Interest (print) under 50,000 circulation: Saralee Perel, Cape Cod (Mass.) Times; Eve Samples, The Stuart (Fla) News; Ken Tingley, The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.
• Humor (print) under 50,000 circulation: Saralee Perel, Cape Cod (Mass.) Times; Laura Rafaty, Napa Valley (Calif.) Register; Jerry Zezima, Stamford (Conn.) Advocate.
• Online, Blog and Multimedia over 100,000 monthly unique visitors: John Avlon, The Daily Beast; Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times; Roger Simon, Politico.
• Online, Blog and Multimedia under 100,000 monthly unique visitors: Ivy Eisenberg, Schmeightschmatchers; Mike Farley, farleyinwriting.com; Amy White, Waiting for Merlot.