An Interview with Ham Fish, American Publisher, Social Entrepreneur and Academy Award Winning Film Producer

Co-founder with yours truly of the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth Telling, Hamilton Fish (“Ham” to friends and associates) is an American publisher, social entrepreneur and film producer. He broke the ranks of a long line of Republican ancestors when in the seventies he teamed up with Victor Navasky to revitalize the venerable Nation magazine, and later ran as a Democrat for Congress in New York’s Hudson Valley. Ham produced two of the epic films of Marcel Ophuls, including Hotel Terminus, winner of the Academy Award in 1989. I worked with him for a decade at The Nation Institute on whistleblower protection and recognition issues, a project we developed under the name of my friend the New Orleanian journalist Ron Ridenhour. Today Ham is publisher of The Washington Spectator.