Julie Szego

Julie Szego is a Melbourne-based author and journalist.

Career
Szego started working as a lawyer before switching to writing. She wrote for The Age on and off for more than two decades as a social affairs reporter, senior writer, leader writer and most recently as a weekly columnist before being sacked by the paper in June 2023. She was sacked as a columnist after calling out the newspaper over its refusal to run her commissioned article on youth gender transition. She self-published the piece on Substack. The controversy was covered by the ABC's Media Watch program in a segment that generated controversy of its own.

Szego wrote a monthly column for The Australian Jewish News for seven years and edited her father's 2001 memoir, Two Prayers to One God. She also wrote for The Guardian.

She has taught journalism and creative non-fiction at RMIT, Monash, and other Melbourne-area universities.

Szego is the author of non-fiction book The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama, which was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary Awards for 2015.

She is planning to write a book about gender ideology in Australia.

In November 2023, Szego resigned from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) because of that union's endorsement of an open letter to Australian media outlets, which condemned the Australian Government for "Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza", stated that "the conflict did not start on October 7", and demanded that media companies should respect the right of journalists to "publicly and openly express personal solidarity with the Palestinian cause without penalty in their professional lives". Szego called the letter "an Orwellian exercise in calling for 'truth' while peddling gross distortions thereof".

Personal
Szego is the partner of Tony Lupton. Tony and Julie have two daughters.