[2][3] While she was a student, Maughan's first vacation job was as an entry-level general reporter at the Cape Argus in the late 1990s.
[1] Between 2010 and 2018, she worked in broadcast journalism as a legal journalist at eNCA, where she covered the Oscar Pistorius trial.
[12] Maughan became a household name in 2022, when former President Jacob Zuma brought criminal charges against her in private prosecution.
[15] Represented by Max du Plessis,[16] three media organisations – the South African National Editors' Forum, Media Monitoring Africa, and the Campaign for Free Expression – joined the case as amici curiae to argue that the private prosecution against Maughan constituted a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).
[24][25] In addition to these technical grounds, the court agreed with the argument that the private prosecution resembled a SLAPP suit and violated Maughan's constitutional right to freedom of expression.
[30] Nonetheless, Zuma continued a legal campaign to have the private prosecution proceed, ultimately approaching the Constitutional Court.
[36] A January 2024 piece in the Sunday Independent, which claimed Maughan was "South Africa's highest-paid journalist", suggested that her employment by News24 constituted "a collaboration rooted in the influence of the ruling white monopoly capital".
[37] A March 2024 piece in the same newspaper compared her with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl in the course of questioning Maughan's reporting on Survé's company, Sekunjalo Investment Holdings.
[39] Maughan co-wrote three books: Lolly Jackson: When Fantasy Becomes Reality (2012) with Sean Newman and Peter Piegl, about assassinated Teazers' owner Lolly Jackson;[40] Love is War: The Modimolle Monster (2013) with Shaun Swingler, a true crime book about Modimolle rapist Johan Kotze;[41] and Nuclear: Inside South Africa's Secret Deal (2018) with Kirsten Pearson, about the abortive Russian nuclear deal.