Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Former Liberal Party federal president John Valder and Margo at a forum in the Blue Mountains, 2004.

Biography

Margo and her Mum, Jann Alcorn, 2005.

Before taking Webdiary independent on 22 August, 2005, Margo was the political commentator for the Sydney Morning Herald online, founding editor of  Webdiary from July 2000 and, until June 2004, wrote a weekly column in the Sun Herald.

She was born in Maryborough, Queensland, in 1959, grew up in the North Queensland sugar city of Mackay and graduated with an Arts Law degree from the University of Queensland. She practised as a solicitor and lectured in business law before joining Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper. She began her career with Fairfax as the Queensland Brisbane correspondent for the Times on Sunday then moved to the Sydney Morning Herald before stints as a federal political journalist with The Age, the Canberra Times under Michelle Grattan's editorship and a year as Jana Wendt's political researcher on A Current Affair . She worked in the Sydney Morning Herald's Canberra Bureau as a reporter and Chief of Staff from 1994 to early 2001 before moving to Sydney to work for the SMH online full time.  Margo was Phillip Adams's 'Canberra Babylon' commentator on the ABC's Late Night Live for five years.

Her 1999 book Off the Rails: The Pauline Hanson Trip won the 2000 Dobbie award for best first book by a female writer.

In 2004 Margo wrote 'Not Happy, John! Defending our democracy (Penguin), launched in Sydney by Tony Fitzgerald QC. Margo's Sydney Morning Herald interview on the book is here. The Pandora archive of the book's interactive website is here. Penguin published her 2007 election update, called Still Not Happy, John! in early October, 2007