William Orme

William Orme
Policy Advisor, Independent Media Development
Democratic Governance Group
United Nations Development Programme

Bill Orme was appointed in December 2006 as the United Nations Development Programme's Policy Advisor for Independent Media Development, based in the Democratic Governance Group at UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy (BDP). In his previous four years at UNDP Bill was chief of External Communications, overseeing UNDP's global press relations and advocacy campaigns and acting as UNDP's chief spokesman. Bill is now charged with strengthening UNDP's support for independent and effective journalism in developing countries, through training programs, regulatory
reform, policy support, and other avenues of UN assistance to local news media. From 1992 to 1998 Bill was Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press freedom organization headquartered in New York. He returned to daily journalism as a Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent for The New York Times (1998-2001) and UN bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times (2001-2). Previously he served as the founding editor of LatinFinance, a regional business monthly launched in 1988, following ten years of reporting in Latin America as a correspondent for the Washington Post, The Economist, and other publications. Bill is the author of "Understanding NAFTA: Mexico, Free Trade and the New North America" (University of Texas, 1996) and the editor and lead essayist of "A Culture of Collusion: An Inside Look at the Mexican Press" (University of Miami, 1997). Other books to which he has contributed include the "Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications" (Elsevier Science - Academic Press, 2003); "Crimes of War" (Roy Gutman and David Rieff, eds., W.W. Norton & Co., 1999), and "Journalists in Peril" (Nancy J. Woodhull and Robert W. Snyder, eds., Transaction, 1998). For his work at the Committee to Protect Journalists, Bill was presented the First Amendment Award by the U.S. Society of Professional Journalists. Bill is an alumnus ofFriends World College and has taught post-graduate courses in journalism and Latin American studies at the University of Southern California.