AP Appoints 'L.A. Times' Foreign Editor its Latin America, Caribbean Editor

(AP) Marjorie Miller, a longtime foreign correspondent and foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times, has been appointed Latin America and Caribbean Editor for The Associated Press.

Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski announced the appointment on Monday.

"Marjorie Miller is one of the United States' most respected foreign news editors, having led the Los Angeles Times' award-winning foreign news team through wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, myriad natural disasters and dramatic political developments around the world.

"As AP's Latin America and Caribbean Editor, she will bring her understanding and vision of international news to a global audience, ensuring that AP remains the definitive source of information about this dynamic and fast-growing region of the world."

The Latin America regional editor is responsible for coverage in a region stretching from the U.S. border in the north to Tierra del Fuego in South America, plus the Caribbean region from Trinidad to Bermuda. The editor also has oversight of AP's global Spanish news service, including reporters, editors and translators working in Spanish inside the United States and across Latin America. The editor works closely with regional leaders in photos and video.

Miller will report to Daniszewski, and will oversee about 100 reporters and editors in Latin America and the United States from Mexico City, one of the AP's five international regional centers. The others are Bangkok for the Asia-Pacific, London for Europe, Cairo for the Middle East, and Johannesburg for Africa.

"Latin America is a second home to me," Miller said. "I am so pleased to be returning to Mexico and to be able to focus on this multifaceted region and its many challenges.

"These are times of tremendous change in journalism. The AP has been adapting to those changes, maintaining its tradition of excellence, speed and accuracy while distributing its content across different platforms. I am looking forward to being part of this exciting work," she said.

Miller succeeds Niko Price, who was appointed Europe editor in August.

For the past two years, Miller has been the foreign policy editorial writer and op-ed correspondent at the Los Angeles Times. Before that, from 2002 to 2008, she was foreign editor during a period when the Times won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and numerous other accolades, including from the Overseas Press Club and the Robert F. Kennedy Center.

Miller began her career as a foreign correspondent in the early 1980s working in Mexico City as a reporter for the AP. From there, she moved to the San Diego Union to cover the U.S.-Mexico Border.

She joined the Times in 1983. Two years later she was named San Salvador bureau chief to cover El Salvador's civil war and the U.S.-backed Contra war in Nicaragua. In 1988, she was appointed Mexico City bureau chief, reporting on the beginning of Mexico's transition to democracy, as well as continuing to cover seminal events in Central America such as the killing of the Jesuit priests in El Salvador and the U.S. invasion of Panama.

In 1993, she was appointed Bonn bureau chief for the newspaper, covering the aftermath of German unification, a post she retained until transferring in 1995 to Jerusalem. Her stories there included the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the unraveling of the Oslo peace process, and the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

She left the Mideast in 1998 to take over the newspaper's London bureau, where she chronicled the Northern Ireland peace process, Prime Minister Tony Blair's "Cool Britain" and the NATO invasion of Kosovo. She remained in Europe until her appointment as foreign editor four years later.

Miller, 54, is married to journalist Carlos Rajo, a political analyst for Telemundo television in Los Angeles; they have two daughters. She graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a bachelor of arts with honors in American studies, and speaks fluent Spanish. She is a board member of the International Women's Media Foundation.