Why I said goodbye to the newspaper I loved

Here's the column I wish was my final one. After 25 years, I've moved to Substack.

Note: This is a revised piece of my farewell column that ran in the Sunday, May 19, 2024, print edition of The Davis Enterprise. Even if you already read that, read on for several new nuggets. The original column has since been removed from The Enterprise’s website.

This is my last Comings & Goings column for The Davis Enterprise. In support of my colleague Bob Dunning, I’m leaving the newspaper I’ve loved for 25 years.

I started at The Davis Enterprise in 1998, as an editor. I was the mom of a soon-to-be 2-year-old, and was frazzled working nights and weekends, commuting about an hour each way to a larger paper. If I was lucky, my husband and I had one day (and one evening) off together. The Enterprise matched my former salary, and I was a happy mom.

It was thrilling to dive back into Davis after living here in college. (I was a Sacramento State Hornet living a UC Davis Aggie life). Like most papers at the time, The Davis Enterprise had a thriving newsroom, with reporters for each major beat like crime and courts, UC Davis, the city of Davis and Yolo County, and K-12 schools. There was a nationally famous columnist, Bob Dunning, who wrote five columns a week. His equivalent at my previous paper was cocky about his three columns. I was in awe.

The paper published six days a week, but not on holidays. Editors (plural!) traded Saturday shifts around, so it was easy to have a normal life and work close to home. I got to choose 10- or eight-hour days, depending on my family’s needs. What a gift.

But it’s the staff that made me stay. Foremost, we had a rock star editor, Debbie Davis, whose office gathered dust. She preferred to work in the bustling newsroom. Her mentorship turned cub reporters into world-class journalists who have gone on to the New York Times and Washington Post. It was a major blow when she left the paper a few years ago, trying to save others’ jobs.

I was on maternity leave in 2000 when Debbie promoted me to managing editor. I had already created a local stylebook for the reporters and editors (including the mantra, not all cattle are cows!), and led the paper through its first of two redesigns during my tenure. I was a constant advocate for clear, clean, concise writing that followed AP Style.

When I launched this column in 2001, it was mostly out of frustration. There wasn’t a business beat, so I had to beg reporters to take time out of their meeting, breaking news or court coverage to write about a business change I thought was important. When a few of those assignments sat uncovered, I gathered them into a column and called it Coming & Going. I wrote it occasionally, whenever I had enough news. Within a few months, people were calling it Comings & Goings, so I made it plural.

When the internet started becoming important, we had one computer that had World Wide Web access. Bob always worked from home, delivering his printed column to Debbie most mornings for our afternoon paper. She typed it into our system, editing as she went. I love Bob but hated it when Debbie was gone, partly because I had to be his secretary.

So, I was the one who gladly helped Bob with his first email-submitted column. By phone, I talked him through opening Netscape. I explained the login and password, and how it would dial in to connect, making a screeching sound.

Bob interrupted, complaining that it wasn’t working.

“No it isn’t, Bob,” I said. “That’s because you have to get off this phone call!”

Debbie and I had a skeleton crew on Sept. 11, 2001, a Tuesday that became the biggest news day of our lives. We started each day at 6 a.m. As the morning unfolded, we realized this was The Story. We redid the front page several times, eventually pushing all unrelated stories to the inside pages. We removed the teasers, and got local reaction. As an afternoon paper, I’m proud we were the first newspaper in the region with to hit the streets with that news, and the headline “UNDER ATTACK.” I still have that edition.

The Great Recession of 2008 was a tough one. The internet had already decimated classified ad profits. Now advertisers couldn’t afford as many display ads. Profits dove. Layoffs began at The Enterprise, including the paper’s production manager, sports editor and others.

Fearing I’d be next, I started applying for jobs at UC Davis. When I made it to the final round for one position, that department called everyone’s references. (Note to employers: Please don’t do this.) I believe The Enterprise assumed I’d be hired. I wasn’t.

My managing editor position was eliminated in October 2008. Burt McNaughton delivered the news personally, and gave me a typical severance: about a week’s pay for each of my 10 years of service. After the announcement was made, I stayed to finish the page I started, trying to lessen the load on my colleagues.

I ended up without full-time employment for a year. We struggled to pay our Davis mortgage on my husband’s UCD staff salary, my unemployment and a few freelance gigs. There weren’t many jobs for journalists. I got more interviews at UCD but no offers for a year. (After seven years, my column was beginning to gain a following but nothing like its popularity today). My first job ended up being the highest-paying and most disliked work of my career: an executive secretary.

Meanwhile, I championed The Enterprise and continued to write this column weekly – for $35 apiece at first. Years later, I negotiated some raises – low triple digits, baby! – but none that came close to equaling my column’s value to the paper. For several years, Comings & Goings has received more online readership than any other regular feature. My friend Lauren Keene’s unparalleled crime and courts coverage is its only sustained competition. (A lot of Bob’s Enterprise readers preferred the hardcopy, which is impossible to measure).

I am sad for the paper but troubled by its handling of Bob, the person who personifies it. He deserved a severance for his 54 years of service. I waited a week to make this decision, hoping the McNaughtons would make things right. Apparently, that’s not going to happen. In the meantime, several other writers exited the publication without fanfare. Bob’s wife, Shelley Dunning, stopped her food column. Longtime sportswriter and former editor Bruce Gallaudet – Debbie Davis’ husband – soon followed. Columnist Tanya Perez and food columnist Julie Cross were next. Another longtime columnist, Marion Franck, feels torn. And these are the ones I know about.

I will continue to write weekly about Yolo County business changes – here on Substack. This means I am no longer bound to a Friday morning deadline or the Sunday business page. I don’t have to worry about covering news that overlaps with other Enterprise reporters’ beats, and I will save myself the frustration if they cover mine.

I look forward to seeing where this goes. Thanks for coming along.