Diane Winston is the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at University of Southern California. Winston is the publisher of Religion Dispatches, an online magazine covering religion, politics and culture. She holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University in religion, and master’s degrees from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Harvard Divinity School.

Winston has authored and edited several books, including “Red Hot and Righteous: The Urban Religion of the Salvation Army,” “Faith in the Market: Religion and Urban Commercial Culture,” “Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion,” and the “Oxford Handbook of American News and Religion.” Her latest book, “Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision” (University of Chicago Press, July 2023), sparked lectures, interviews, articles and 10 panels on Christian nationalism.

As a reporter, Winston worked for The Baltimore Sun, Dallas Times Herald and Raleigh News and Observer. She has been published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Chronicle of Higher Education among other publications.