bloods
Rehana Rossouw
AGE has made way for youth in the Nasionale Pers (Naspers) media stable. Their executive chairman Ton Vosloo and Rapport editor Izak de Villiers will retire in October.
De Villiers said this week there was no coup: Naspers’s retirement age for editors was 61 and he reaches that age in July; Vosloo was leaving a little earlier as he turns 60 in September.
Koos Bekker, 44, chief executive of M-Net, is to replace Vosloo, who becomes non- executive chairman. Die Burger deputy editor Chris Moolman will become the new editor of Rapport.
De Villiers said although his company had hoped he would stay on a little longer, he was ready to leave.
“I want to travel. I want to see how people live in Mombasa, in Nairobi, in Kampala and in Nepal,” he said.
Asked whether he would attempt to climb Mount Everest when he visited Nepal, De Villiers retorted: “Ek wil nie van myself ‘n gat maak nie [I don’t want to make an arse of myself].”
Rapport is the second paper De Villiers edited. He joined Sarie magazine as editor in 1982 and Rapport in 1991. The circulation of both publications grew under his editorship.