Ian Urbina (born March 29, 1972) is an American investigative reporter who has written for a variety of outlets, including The New York Times and The Atlantic.

[8] A 2007 New York Times investigation by Urbina about "mag crews" — traveling groups of teenagers, many of them runaways or from broken homes, who sell magazine subscriptions — was optioned for a 2016 movie, American Honey, directed by Andrea Arnold and starring Shia LaBeouf.

[14] In 2013, he wrote a story about longterm exposure to hazardous chemicals and the federal agency, OSHA, which is responsible for protecting against these workplace threats.

[21][22][23][24] To report the stories, Urbina traveled through Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, much of that time spent on fishing ships, chronicling a diversity of crimes offshore, including the killing of stowaways, sea slavery, intentional dumping, illegal fishing, the stealing of ships, gun-running, stranding of crews, and murder with impunity.

Musician Benn Jordan claimed Urbina kept most of the revenue from the Outlaw Ocean Music Project for himself and his company, Synesthesia Media.