Tom Doran, field editor for Illinois Agri News, was recently recognized by the Illinois Corn Growers Association with the Excellence in Media Award for his work covering and promoting agriculture and Illinois corn. Doran’s 50-year journalism career includes 20 years covering agriculture.
“I started while I was three days short of my 16th birthday. I started in the photography part of it, doing darkroom work and so forth, taking pictures for my community newspaper in Dwight, where I grew up,” shares Doran.
“So the changes are that I started literally with a manual Royal typewriter to write my stories. I started writing when I was in college, went to SIU Carbondale, and started writing in 1977. We would type the stories on a sheet of 8.5-by-11 paper, give it to the typesetter, and she’d retype it — you know, no efficiency there at all. Then eventually, fast-forward 15 years later, we got a little bit more into the computer phase of it.”
Doran shares that over his years of covering agriculture, he has spent a lot of time reporting on changes in technology.
“Farming has changed since the early 1980s and since that time, it seems like trying to keep up with reporting on the new technology,” says Doran. “It used to be something new would come out every couple of years, but now it’s like every month or so there’s something new coming out that you have to stay ahead of and report on.”
Doran was presented the Excellence in Media Award at the Illinois Corn Growers Association Annual Meeting in November 2025.
