Fresno Bee’s immigration crackdown coverage wins top Public Service honors at CNPA awards
For the second year in a row, The Fresno Bee won top honors in the Public Service category, this time for sweeping coverage of the federal government’s immigration crackdown, with several investigative stories focused on the chaotic opening of a privately owned detention facility in the Central Valley.
The Bee has published more than a hundred stories about the immigration crackdown and its toll on families and Central Valley life.
The team of four Bee reporters included Erik Galicia, Melissa Montalvo, Maria G. Ortiz-Briones and Marina Pena. Montalvo won the Public Service award last year for her 2024 stories about worker deaths at facilities owned by Sanger-based Pitman Family Farms, maker of Mary’s Chicken brand poultry.
The Bee also won top prize in the Editorial Comment category for an opinion piece about the U.S. Border Patrol sweep of immigrants in the Central Valley in January 2025, several weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration. In his piece, California leaders are inexcusably silent as Border Patrol sweeps Central Valley, Opinion Editor Juan Esparza Loera takes state leaders to task for not speaking out more forcefully against the raids as they unfolded.
The Bee also took top prize in the Coverage of Youth and Education category for reporter Leqi Zhong’s investigation into the gender inequity in dress code enforcement by Clovis Unified schools. Zhong used smart records requests, data analysis and on-the-ground reporting for her piece, Girls are overly targeted by Clovis Unified student dress code, which revealed the embarrassment for young girls and other negative effects from the aggressive enforcement.
The California Newspaper Publishers Association sponsors the annual awards, which includes most professional and student news outlets in the state. The Bee this year competed in Division III, for publications with daily print circulation of 15,000 and under; and/or 500,000-599,000 monthly unique visitors; and/or 16-25 full-time employees.
Here is the full list of Bee awards and live links to the original stories
- Public Service Journalism (Division 2), FIRST PLACE: California’s largest ICE detention facility has 500 detainees. ‘It’s total chaos’. See the full entry here.
- Coverage of Youth and Education, FIRST PLACE: Girls are overly targeted by Clovis Unified student dress code
- Editorial Comment, FIRST PLACE: California leaders are inexcusably silent as Border Patrol sweeps Central Valley | Opinion
- Investigative Reporting, SECOND PLACE: Did conflict of interest cost Fresno State in football stadium deal with Valley Children’s?
- Music Writing/Reporting, THIRD PLACE, Shakira sells out Fresno concert at Valley Children’s Stadium. See full entry here.
- General Excellence, THIRD PLACE
Christopher Kirkpatrick is The Fresno Bee’s senior editor.
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