If you have ever questioned whether a quarter, or several, was just too much to spend for a newspaper, you probably never toured a newspaper operation. After viewing the myriad editors, reporters, advertising staff, production staff, administrators, computers, networks, and the equipment involved in printing a newspaper, one’s questioning would disappear, replaced with a desire to treat your delivery person for delivering so much for so little.

What is this entity that shows up six days a week, mostly on the driveway, occasionally on the sidewalk, rarely on a sprinkler head? It is our community’s newspaper, founded in 1897: The Davis Enterprise. And, it’s locally-owned! How is it that we are fortunate enough to have a newspaper owned and operated by people from our own community? Debbie Davis, editor and assistant publisher, provides the insight.

“Newspapers are just being gobbled up by the corporations. I’m so grateful that Foy McNaughton [CEO for the newspaper group] hasn’t caved in. He’s very proud of his grandfather’s legacy. His grandfather is the family patriarch that started the McNaughton newspaper empire [in Illinois].” Foy McNaughton’s father, Dean, came out West and bought the newspaper in Fairfield, followed by the paper here in Davis (1967), and the one in Placerville.