Journalism awards generally laud work that uncovers lies and chicanery in government or the dire circumstance in which South African’s poor live but last week a courageous piece of journalism appeared in Business Day that has got Media Land hugely indignant – and rightly so.

Enterprising media reporter Chantelle Benjamin revealed that Avusa’s CEO, Prakash Desai, pocketed more than R24m when he split the company in two and sold a valuable stake in pay-TV channel MNet. Business Day’s editor, Peter Bruce, must have held his breath when he decided to run the piece because Avusa owns half of Business Day.

I was once a media reporter for Business Day and would fret dreadfully when it came to writing stories involving our owners or bosses. The master doesn’t take kindly to having his little hounds ask uncomfortable questions of him. It only happens if the editor has balls.

There’s nothing illegal in Desai’s payout of share options and I guess R24m buys you a pretty thick skin. For his part, Desai – more used to toadying half pages in Business Times when the company’s results are released (Avusa also owns the Sunday Times) – didn’t even bother to speak to Benjamin though they work in the same premises in Rosebank. He said in a statement, according to Business Day: “I was forced, obliged to exercise all options allocated over the past 10 years of employment at the group when the legal entity ElementOne was formed and I parted company to a new legal entity”.

Being forced to cash in R24m because of a plan you were involved in hatching must have been a trial and now the minions of Avusa are being damn ungrateful.

To read the rest of my column, go over to Moneyweb

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