Ian Fisher

Ian Fisher (b. 1965) is an American handmade pipe maker, based in New York, who carries on pipe making alongside his career in journalism. That he took up the craft as he neared fifty, without stepping away from writing, sets him apart from most makers of his generation. The pipes he produces are stamped with his own surname.

The Journalism Track

After graduating from Boston University in 1987, Fisher began his journalism career at The Lowell Sun in Massachusetts. He joined The New York Times in 1990, moved into reporting in 1992, and worked at the paper for a total of about twenty-seven years. A long stretch of that time was spent as a bureau chief: East Africa, based in Nairobi, from 1998 to 2001; Eastern Europe and the Balkans from 2001 to 2004; Rome from 2004 to 2008. Because many of his postings turned into conflict zones within a short time, war reporting was added to his beat as well. He left the paper in 2017; a stint at Bloomberg that began the following year ran through 2024, and he returned to the Times in 2026.