Miranda Devine

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Miranda Devine is an Australian columnist and writer for The Sydney Morning Herald, noted for her conservative stance on a range of social and political issues, and for her defence of Howard government policy.

Born in New York in the early 1960s, Devine's family later moved to London and then Tokyo where they resided for six years. She is the eldest of three children of famous newspaper editor Frank Devine. Afterwards, her family settled on Sydney's North Shore.

Whilst in Tokyo, she and her two younger sisters attended an American International School, but were able to speak Japanese fluently. A devout Roman Catholic, Devine's high school education was completed at Loreto Kirribilli, a Catholic girl's private school. 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 attend the Medill graduate school of journalism. There, she worked for the Boston Herald as a city-beat reporter. Devine returned to Sydney in 1989 and soon after joined The Daily Telegraph as a general reporter. She was promoted in the early 1990s by the Telegraph's then editor Col Allan who wanted a strong female voice representing the then very masculine newspaper. There, Devine would establish herself as a staunch conservative, and politically polarising figure. Devine's name became so entrenched with her right-wing commentary that when she married and wanted to change her name, Allan objected.

In 2000, 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.