Miranda Devine

Miranda Devine is an Australian columnist and writer, noted for her conservative stance on a range of social and political issues. Her column is printed twice weekly in Fairfax Media newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald.

Biography

Miranda Devine is the eldest of three children of newspaper editor Frank Devine. She was born in New York in the early 1960s. Her family later moved to London and then lived in Tokyo for six years. Afterwards, her family settled on Sydney's North Shore.

While in Tokyo, she and her two younger sisters attended an American International School, and learned to speak Japanese fluently. A devout Roman Catholic, Devine completed her high school education at Loreto Kirribilli, a Catholic girls' private school in Sydney. After school, she completed a mathematics degree at Macquarie University. On receipt of her degree, Devine joined the CSIRO in their textile physics division. She would however only spend a year there, finding the work unrewarding.

On recommendation from her father, Devine travelled to Chicago to attain a Masters degree at Northwestern University's Medill graduate school of journalism. She worked for the Boston Herald as a reporter and feature writer. Devine returned to Sydney in 1989 and soon after joined The Daily Telegraph as a police reporter. She was promoted to assistant editor and, later, opinion columnist in the early 1990s by the Telegraph's then editor Col Allan who wanted a strong female voice representing the then very masculine newspaper. Devine's columns became so popular that when she married and wanted to change her name, Allan objected.

In 2001, after Allan had left for New York, Devine turned down the Telegraph's offer of more money and took up an offer to write for its main rival The Sydney Morning Herald. Devine is a personal friend of fellow conservative columnist Tim Blair, who said of her: "She's got good antennae. She can read people which is why she accurately predicts election results."

When interviewed for an April 2007 article in The Australian about hate mail received by female columnists, Devine commented: “You are contesting ideas and you have to do it in a polarising way. When you write a column, you can't sit on the fence.”

Devine is a member of the editorial advisory board of the conservative Quadrant magazine.

She constantly comes under fire for her opinions, with many people believing she represents the voice of ignorance, and should refrain from writing about subjects of which she has little knowledge. She also receives criticism for the dangerous aggression her comments can generate. In 2009 she wrote an opinion piece supporting a strong anti bicycle stance, giving rise to spate of attacks against cyclists in the following weeks.

External links

• Miranda Devine's Sydney Morning Herald column