Earleen Fisher, an editor and writer whose career across five decades with The Associated Press gave her a front-row seat to some of the late 20th century’s most chaotic and challenging news stories, has died. She was 78 and counted Yasser Arafat and the Dalai Lama among her interviews.
Fisher died peacefully Wednesday morning at The Maples at Waterford Crossing nursing home in Goshen, Indiana, of complications from Parkinson’s disease, said her cousin, Phil Dowty. She had been ill from Parkinson’s for a number of years.
She retired in 2004 after 32 years at the AP, a career that took her from her native Indiana to New York as an editor on the agency’s old General Desk with stints in Tel Aviv and Beirut — and ultimately to bureau chief jobs in India, Cyprus and Egypt, where she eventually oversaw all coverage of the Middle East.
Fisher oversaw Middle East operations for the AP during tense times of war and conflict in the 1980s. She expected the best from her people but cared about them immensely along the way, recalled longtime AP international correspondent Robert Reid, who worked with her frequently.
“Earleen was a fantastic editor. She was firm, and she wouldn’t pull any punches, but she was willing to sit down with people and go over their material and show how it should be done,” said Reid, editor-in-chief of Stars & Stripes.
Fisher was a progressive traditionalist, always intent on moving the AP forward, suggesting new ideas but steadfastly unwilling to veer from the agency’s bedrock principles of accuracy and speed — sometimes no small accomplishment in the context of covering nations and societies at war.
Fisher was also known for her enthusiastic interactions with AP customers. In 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein vanished during the United States’ invasion of Iraq, Fisher traveled to Baghdad to oversee operations and welcome back a local newspaper as an AP customer. Her entourage was received with tea and hospitality, and the staff listened intently as she talked about AP coverage and how it could help them thrive in a new Iraq. “I can see you love what you do,” the newspaper’s editor told her.
“Earleen Fisher was not only a beautiful writer and talented editor but as the first — or one of the first — women to head a major AP international bureau, she was also very successful at selling AP’s news, photo and video services to newspapers and television stations across the Middle East and in India,” said Edith M. Lederer, the AP’s longtime chief U.N. correspondent, who was friends with Fisher for 50 years and traveled with her frequently.
“I marveled at her almost photographic memory and reveled in our travels in Asia, and her love of history, mysteries, and her cats,” Lederer said.
Earleen Marie Fisher began reporting for her hometown newspaper, The Milford (Ind.) Mail, as a sophomore in high school. At Indiana University, she worked for the Indiana Daily Student, becoming managing editor her senior year. AP hired her as a part-time newswoman in Indianapolis that spring and gave her a full-time job after graduation.
She transferred to AP’s New York headquarters in 1971 to work as a supervisor on the U.S. news report. In 1977, Fisher moved to Cairo as a freelance writer, working for the AP, The New York Times and the Voice of America. She covered the rise of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
She rejoined the AP in 1980, working in Beirut and Tel Aviv.
In 1985, she returned to New York, working as a supervisor on the foreign desk. In 1987, she was appointed bureau chief in New Delhi, where she directed news coverage for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and the Maldives. During that period, she had this to say about the Dalai Lama: He “combines the piety of a simple priest with the pragmatism of a politician.”
In 1992, she became chief of the AP’s Middle East Services, based first in Cyprus and later in Cairo. She directed news coverage for 16 countries. Under her leadership, the bureau covered stories such as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Years after being posted in Beirut, Fisher returned there to take stock of how it was doing. She wrote in 1993: “In the nation whose new name became a synonym for death and destruction, people are doing what would have been unthinkable a few years ago — building and repairing things that break.”
After leaving the AP in 2004, Fisher taught at the American University in Cairo, and worked in Beirut on a U.S.-funded media development program for the Middle East and North Africa. She retired to Indiana in 2007.
“Earleen left a huge and positive mark on all the reporters and editors she worked with. Her clearheaded coverage of the Middle East in particular helped AP stand out there for many years,” said Paul Haven, AP’s vice president for global news gathering.
Fisher is a member of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
She is survived by her brother, Rex, also of Milford, Indiana. Funeral services are scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Mishler Funeral Home in Milford, with burial to follow immediately afterward.