In October 2013, A.H. Belo announced that it had reached an agreement to sell The Press-Enterprise's assets to Freedom Communications, parent company of the Orange County Register, for $27 million;[7] after some delays, the transaction closed in late November.

[9] In 1880 Roe sold the newspaper to Luther M. Holt, who, for several years, published the paper under the name the Riverside Press and Horticulturist.

[10] The Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corporation purchased The Press-Enterprise Company from the Hays family through multiple acquisitions in 1997 and 1998.

On March 21, 2016, The Press-Enterprise and its sister newspaper the Orange County Register were sold to Digital First Media, after Freedom Communications declared bankruptcy and was placed in an auction which included Tribune Publishing.

The Press-Enterprise won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service for its exposé of corruption in the courts in connection with the handling of the property and estates of the Agua Caliente Indian tribe of Palm Springs, California.

In a case involving the rape and murder of a teenage girl, the Press-Enterprise requested that the voir dire, the process of questioning the jury, be open to the public and press.

The United States Supreme Court decided in favor of the Press-Enterprise, establishing that the public has the right to attend jury selection during criminal trials.

The case involved Robert Diaz who was accused of 12 patient murders while acting as a nurse at the Community Hospital of the Valleys in Perris, California.