Margo Kingston

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Margo Kingston (born 1959) is an Australian journalist, author and commentator. She is best known for her work at The Sydney Morning Herald and her weblog, Webdiary.

Kingston was born in Maryborough, Queensland and was raised in Mackay. After graduating from the University of Queensland with a degree in arts and law, she qualified as a solicitor and practised in Brisbane and later lectured in commercial law in Rockhampton, before becoming a journalist for The Courier-Mail. Within a year she moved to The Times on Sunday. She also worked for The Age, The Canberra Times and A Current Affair before moving to The Sydney Morning Herald, where she worked until August 2005.

Kingston gained prominence in 1998 when she led a sit-in of journalists at the federal election campaign launch of the One Nation Party in the Queensland town of Gatton. The group was protesting the party's treatment of the media during the campaign. Her experiences during this time are recorded in her book, Off The Rails: The Pauline Hanson Trip.

Kingston may be seen as part of the "larrikin/ratbag" Australian journalistic tradition which also encompasses Alan Ramsey and Stephen Mayne. This tradition is characterised by a willingness to break with convention, espouse controversial opinions and intervene in the events which the journalist is reporting upon. Kingston has been perceived by many, including her supporters, as openly left wing in her political views, however she describes her own position this way: "the irony [is] that I'm not left wing, I'm a small l liberal. A dying breed."

Contents

[edit] Webdiary

She also wrote Webdiary, which until August 22, 2005 was on the Sydney Morning Herald website. On this site Kingston recorded opinions on current events alongside contributors from the general public. Kingston terminated her contract with John Fairfax Holdings, publishers of The Sydney Morning Herald in August 2005. A new site was set up at http://www.webdiary.com.au, however she announced on 7 December 2005 that she would be leaving the site (and journalism) due to financial constraints.[1] The site continues in existence without her input.

Many opinions featured in Webdiary made their way into her 2004 book Not Happy, John, which inspired the 'Not happy John!' campaign, of which she was a founding member. Kingston was also a regular guest on Late Night Live, a nightly radio programme on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National network.

[edit] Quotes

  • "The fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia." - 22 July 2004 [2]
  • "Obviously, I did not mean what many people believed I meant. I am not anti-semitic, and I thought what I wrote was a statement of fact. Is there a language problem here?" - 26 July 2004 [3]
  • "If Australia as a whole says yes to returning a Liberal government, I think our democracy is dead." - 24 August 2004 [4]
  • "Heil Howard. If he gets away with this he really can get away with anything." - 22 February 2005 [5]

[edit] Further reading

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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