An old advertising campaign at WFAA-TV once boasted, “If it touches your life, it’s on News 8.” Veteran journalist Doug Fox is now retired after reporting the news, and touching lives, for 48 years. Fox covered news as a working street reporter for WFAA Channel 8 in Dallas-Fort Worth for almost three decades, a record unparalleled in a business where jumping from job to job, from market to market is so often mistaken for professional accomplishment.
Fox was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and grew up in Dallas. He is a graduate of the University of Texas in Austin. Out of college, he worked for several years in news radio before joining KWTV-TV in Oklahoma City, where he worked as a weekend anchor, political reporter and director of special projects. In 1974 he returned to Texas. He retired in 2003 as the Chief Political Reporter at Channel 8. Doug was often called a “reporter’s reporter.” He had the remarkable ability to encapsulate the moment, to capture the tone and emotion of a situation, and to translate it into words and pictures understood by all.
Over his distinguished career, Fox mentored or teamed with a veritable “Who’s Who” of broadcasting professionals, including (to name only a few) CBS’s Scott Pelley, former ABC correspondent Peggy Wehmeyer, CBS anchor Russ Mitchell, CNN’s Eddie Lavendera, and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Doug also touched the lives of countless other young journalists by always having the both the time and the patience to guide interns through what for most was their first professional experience.
Doug is married and has three children. He and his wife of 36-years, Penny, now live in Estes Park, Colorado. Their children all live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area so he gets back to Texas occasionally. He and Penny are active in a variety of church, civic, and community activities in Estes Park.
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