This year, just 13 days before Cesar Chavez Day, The New York Times released a story written by Fresno State alumnus Manny Fernandez and international investigative reporter Sarah Hurtes titled “Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years.”
Fernandez, New York Times California editor at large, returns to his alma mater for an event titled “Manny Fernandez in Conversation: Inside The New York Times’ Cesar Chavez Investigation” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, at the Satellite Student Union. The discussion is presented by Fresno State’s Institute for Media and Public Trust and moderated by director Jim Boren. The event is free and open to the public.
After five years of research and reporting, and based on more than 60 interviews, the story’s impact prompted a wave of cancellations and renamings as authorities and institutions sought to remove and dismantle the deeply entrenched legacy. Within days, the Cesar Chavez statue was removed from the Fresno State Peace Garden, the Fresno City Council voted unanimously to change Cesar Chavez Boulevard back to the streets’ original names, and the state of California renamed Cesar Chavez Day to Farmworkers Day. Similar changes swept across the country, causing a stir that continues as more accusers step forward and lawsuits begin to fill courtrooms.
“It’s a humbling honor for me to come back to Fresno State,” said Fernandez, who earned his bachelor’s degree in 1997. “This is where I not only learned the art and craft of journalism but where I fell in love with it, too. I used to sit in the library reading The New York Times, dreaming of one day working there. I am walking proof for students that dreams aren’t moonshots. They’re road maps.”
Growing up in Fresno, Fernandez was surrounded by the legacy of the farm labor movement in the San Joaquin Valley. He began his journalism career writing for his high school newspaper at San Joaquin Memorial, later writing for The Collegian student newspaper at Fresno State and interning at The Fresno Bee while he was studying journalism.
After graduating, Fernandez worked as a reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his feature writing on homeless runaways in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Moving east, he worked as a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post before joining The New York Times in 2005. In 2007, he was part of a team of reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists for the breaking news coverage of a fire in the Bronx that killed 10 people from West Africa.
In 2011, Fernandez moved to Texas and became Houston bureau chief for The New York Times before moving to his home state of California in 2020, where he became Los Angeles bureau chief. He soon became deputy editor of politics, helping shape The New York Times’ coverage of the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election. In 2023, he was the lead editor of a series examining Donald Trump’s early plans to expand the power of the presidency if elected. In 2026, he was named the National Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Fresno State’s Institute for Media and Public Trust is committed to improving media literacy and enhancing public trust in journalism. The institute promotes ethical standards, transparency and accountability in media practices and supports investigative and public service journalism.
