Doug Crews

Doug Crews is a journalist and newspaper enthusiast. He began his speech by telling us about one of the major influences in his life, his high school journalism teacher. His name was Robert Cobb. Doug said that Robert was a great journalist and mentor. He also explained how Robert enjoyed playing golf and baseball even though he had a physical disability. Robert never let his disability get in the way of his teaching or hobbies. This part of Doug's speech was really interesting to me because I was also fortunate enough to have an exceptional high school journalism teacher. His name was Mr. Doyle, I will never forget all he taught us and his goofy, eccentric teaching methods.

Doug wrote for a local newspaper in Fairfax Missouri. Doug believes that at the heart of every lively city is a lively newspaper. A few of the locals would occasionally request that Doug take pictures and write about very strange things for the paper. For example one farmer asked Doug to take a picture of a potato he had grown because he believed it resembled Abe Lincoln. Also, he explained the importance of small newspapers and why he believes they will survive the recession. The part of his speech that had the largest impact on me was when he showed how important it is that newspapers can be used as a tool for studying our past. People use newspapers from twenty years ago to look back and see what was going on locally and to get the facts. Doug said he wonders what will happen in a hundred years from now when people try to surf for old websites to find out what had happened in past years. This scenario left me puzzled but intrigued. I hope people do not take for granted the power of the local newspaper.