Alan Fisher is a Global SEnior Correspondent for the 24 hour English language channel, Al Jazeera International. Based in Washington DC he still travels across Europe and beyond for the station. He joined Al Jazeera from GMTV, where for six years, he was their Chief Correspondent.
Born in Motherwell, Scotland, Alan attended the towns Dalziel High School before going on to study journalism at Napier College in Edinburgh. His began his career in journalism writing for his local newspaper, The Motherwell Times while still at school. He went on to join Moray Firth Radio in Inverness as a trainee reporter before moving to NorthSound Radio in Aberdeen.
His TV career began with Grampian Television as a reporter and presenter then he moved to Scottish Television as a reporter and presenter on Scotland’s main evening news programme, Scotland Today. He covered a wide range of stories including Glasgow’s gangland war and the drugs crisis in Scotland. He also carried out a major five part investigation into a huge extortion racket in Scotland which led to questions being asked in Parliament.
Alan joined GMTV at its inception as the stations first Ireland correspondent setting up their bureau in Belfast. He reported on the Shankill bomb, the Loughinisland and Greysteel massacres and the early steps in the peace process including the first ceasefires before moving to London as GMTVs Senior News Correspondent in 1995.
.During that time he covered the war in Bosnia, reporting on the end of the siege of Sarajevo and the huge humanitarian crisis caused by the bloody Rwandan civil war. Alan was in Washington for the 1996 Presidential election and covered the student protests in Indonesia in 1997. He also reported from Baghdad during the UKUS air strikes in 1998, from Paris in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and on the tragic events in Dunblane.
Appointed Chief Correspondent in 1999 Alan spent ten weeks in Baghdad in the run up to the last Gulf War, covered the Bali bombing and recently presented a three part series on poverty in Africa as well as covering major stories in the UK such as the Paddington Train crash, the Carlisle floods and the London terrorist bombings. His live coverage of the discovery of a missing Brighton schoolgirl played a significant part in GMTV winning a National Television award.
At the last count, he has reported from more than forty countries around the world and has a wealth of international news experience.
A regular contributor to radio, newspapers and ‘The Journalist’s Handbook’, Alan is also a patron of the Young UK programme which aims to stretch the minds, stir the consciences and broaden the horizons of its participants all aged between 17-29.
He has been much in demand to speak at and chair conferences. He was recently asked by the Cabinet Office to address one of their high level training courses on the role of the media and he was praised for his role as chairman at a major international conference organised by the Dutch Government in Rotterdam.
Alan became a keen cyclist, raising more than nine thousand pounds for the British Heart Foundation in sponsorship. He also has appeared in the TV prison drama, Bad Girls playing a reporter.