James Painter

Head of the Journalism Fellowship Programme

James Painter joined the BBC World Service in 1992, and has worked in varous capacities there including as head of the Spanish American Service, head of the
BBC Miami office, and editor in the newsroom. He was until recently executive
editor for the Americas and Europe region, and is currently part-time Latin
America analyst.

Prior to joining the BBC, he was a correspondent in Bolivia for four years working for various media in the UK and USA, including the BBC, Reuters, the Independent and the Christian Science Monitor. He has also reported from several other Latin American countries for a wide variety of publications. He has spent much of his working life on Latin America, including a spell as part-time lecturer at the LSE and as a human rights advocate on Central America. He has published, or contributed to, several books and articles on Latin America, particularly on the drugs trade, Bolivia and Central America, and Latin American media issues.

He is the author of the 2008 RISJ's CHALLENGES publication Counter-Hegemonic
News: A case study of Al-Jazeera English and Telesur. His current areas of
research are how media in developing countries report climate change, and the
impact of global warming on the poor in developing countries.

James recently gave the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) annual lecture on "Climate Change, Latin America and the Media". A transcript of the talk can be downloaded from the SLAS website.