Janet Heard began her career in journalism at The Star in Johannesburg in 1988, reporting on the resistance struggle during the dying days of apartheid and amid a state of emergency. Through her career, she has been a news reporter, columnist, news editor and assistant/executive editor for various publications, including the Sunday Times, Cape Argus, Cape Times and City Press. She also spent three years as a sub-editor overseas at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and The Age in Melbourne. She was a recipient of the Nieman fellowship of journalism at Harvard University in 2009/2010. She has covered national and municipal elections since 1994 and joined Media 24 at the start of the fifth democratic parliament as group parliamentary editor, covering the legislature and the increasing role of opposition parties in the post-liberation landscape. She joined Daily Maverick as Managing Editor a year ago, and is Western Cape convenor of the SA National Editors Forum (SANEF).