Mia Freedman (born 1 October 1971 [1]) is an journalist, columnist, author, blogger and media consultant.
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Freedman was born to Kathy, a psychologist and art gallery owner, and Laurence Freedman, who worked in finance and currently heads The Freedman Foundation. Her father came to Australia to flee the apartheid regime in South Africa. Freedman was raised Jewish. She grew up in Sydney and attended the Ascham School.[2]
She began her career at Cleo, doing work experience at the age of 19. Her first paid job in media was as Cleo's Beauty Editor and she stayed at Cleo for five years working her way up to the position of Features Editor. She left Cleo in 1995 and spent several months as a freelance features writer for magazines including Marie Claire, New Weekly and Who Weekly. In 1996 she became Editor of Australian Cosmopolitan magazine. At age 24, she was the youngest editor of Cosmopolitan's 58 international editions.[3]
In 2001 she was named Editor Of The Year by her peers at the Magazine Publishers Association Awards and during the time she was editor, Cosmopolitan experienced a surge in circulation, readership and advertising revenue. She also launched new stand-alone titles Cosmopolitan Hair & Beauty, Cosmopolitan Pregnancy and Cosmopolitan Brides which are all published several times a year.
The career achievement she has said she was most proud of was instigating Cosmo's Body Love policy in 1997 where diets were banned and "real women" (aka non-models) sized 6-16 and of different skin colours were featured in every issue. Freedman has said diversity, empowerment and reality were her editorial mantras during her time as editor of Cosmo.
She appeared for several years each week on Today, discussing news and lifestyle issues surrounding women, fashion and popular culture.
After seven years and 100 issues editing Cosmopolitan, Freedman became the Editor-In-Chief of Cosmopolitan, Cleo and Dolly in 2003.
In 2005, a book of Freedman's writing called "The New Black" was published by HarperCollins.
After having her second child in 2005, Freedman briefly moved to the Nine Network as Creative Director as part of the executive management team where she oversaw the launch of daytime female chatshow The Catch Up.
Freedman resigned from the Nine Network after less than a year in TV and The Catch Up was cancelled immediately afterwards.
In 2007, Freedman launched her website/blog mamamia.com.au.
She has been writing a weekly column for Sunday Life magazine which appears in The Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age. She has also written features for the Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, Madison and other publications.
She takes on many public speaking engagements to discuss body image in the media, work/life balance and her life and career.
Freedman has stated that she is not the author of a book called "Boned" that was released on June 2, 2008. Freedman has said on her website after hearing speculation she was the anonymous author "Not me, I'm afraid. I put my name to everything I write."
Her second book is a memoir. Called Mamamia: A Memoir of Mistakes, Magazines & Motherhood, it will be released in September 2009 by Harper Collins.
She appears regularly as a commentator on Today on the Nine Network and in 2009 was appointed Chair of the Federal Government's National Body Image Advisory Group by Minister for Sport and Youth, Kate Ellis.[4]
Freedman has three children.
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