Text quoted from The New Discworld Companion.

de Worde, William. A professional scribe. Ankh-Morpork has a number of these, who will write letters home for you, or draft a petition to the Patrician. Son of Lord de Worde (a man with definate, and rather unpleasant, views on how Ankh-Morpork should be run) and the product, therefore, or a wealthy family who are used to getting their own way. The family motto is Le Mot Juste. Their town house is at 50 Nonesuch Street. His elder brother Rupert was killed in battle in Klatch.
     William, who is the youngest son, was educated at Hugglestones, where he enjoyed swordmanship and merely survived everything else. He enjoys reading and writing and he loves words. William is less than typical of the great mass of scribes because of two personal inventions.
     One is the Standard Letter. Movable type had not at the time been invented in Ankh-Morpork and most printing of things like playbills and posters was done by wood-block engravers. It occurred to William ('Thynges Written Downe') de Worde to make use of this facility, because so many of the letters he had to write were so similar.
     William de Worde's related concept was his 'letter of thynges that have happened'. The basic idea wasn't new. Many nobles, foreign dignitaries and expatriate Ankh-Morporkians employ scribes to send them regular letters to keep them up to date with city affairs. But, again, William realised that all he needed do was write one letter with suitable spaces to allow for things like 'To my Noble Lord the...", trace it backwards on pieces of boxwood provided for him by the engaver and then pay the said engraver twenty dollars to carefully remove the wood that wasn't letters and make twenty impressions on sheets of paper.
     However, a chance encounted with Gunilla Goodmountain, and coincidentally with an out-of-control cart full of lead, led William to found Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper, The Ankh-Morpork Times. In fact it would be true to say that he didn't found it, it found him. Without ever actually meaning to, William invented a primitive form of journalism (that is, one not yet so advanced as to consist entirely of things made up) and such associated ideas as The Public Interest and the Freedom Of The Press. He appears to have survived despite this suicidal mind-set. No doubt Lord Vetinari thinks he will be useful. His lordship is quite happy for people to annoy him, provided they annoy other people even more.