Diane Grisham Winston (born August 13, 1948) is a businesswoman from Covington, Louisiana, who served as a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1996 until term-limited in 2008. Her District 77 includes parts of St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes in suburban New Orleans. In 2012, the district becomes based only in St. Tammany Parish.
Winston graduated in 1966 from Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas, Texas. She first attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and thereafter received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Orleans. She is a fellow of the Institute of Politics of Loyola University in New Orleans, along former Representative Garey Forster and government watchdog C.B. Forgotston. Prior to her legislative service, Winston was the executive director of the St. Tammany West Chamber of Commerce from 1988-1996. She also operated her own retail business in Covington. She has been active in the Children’s Advocacy Center, the Louisiana Breast Cancer Task Force, Habitat for Humanity, and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. Married to Robert Bryant “Bob” Winston (born April 15, 1945), she is Lutheran.
Diane Winston is a professor of Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and an author. USC lists her current research interests as media coverage of Islam, religion and new media, and the place of religion in American identity.
She received her B.A. from Brandeis, a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, a masters in journalism from Columbia, and her Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University.
She has previously worked as a journalist at the Baltimore Sun, Dallas Times Herald, and The News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
She has written about the Salvation Army, and has been interviewed by the news media about the interrelationships of religion and modern culture.