---
title: "20 Questions with Craig Bentley-McKune"
description: "Investigative journalist Craig Bentley-McKune spends his days chasing leads, his downtime watching The Wire , and occasionally wondering if his cat has life figured out. He sat down to answer 20 questions for Maverick Insiders."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "20 Questions"
author: "Daily Maverick"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/dailymaverick/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-07-24-20-questions-with-craig-bentley-mckune-/"
published: "2025-07-24T09:59:59"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 397
---

# 20 Questions with Craig Bentley-McKune

> Investigative journalist Craig Bentley-McKune spends his days chasing leads, his downtime watching *The Wire*, and occasionally wondering if his cat has life figured out. He sat down to answer 20 questions for Maverick Insiders.

By Daily Maverick · Published 24 July 2025, 11:59 SAST

## Key points
- Investigative journalist Craig Bentley McKune answers 20 questions for Maverick Insiders.

## Content

**Favourite book. Of all time and recently?**

Recently? Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus.

All time? This question is too tall, but on my bookshelf, On Writing Well by William Zinsser and Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate have aged well.

**Favourite film. Of all time and recently?**

Films don’t stick in my head. Only watch them on planes, if that. The most recent was Chien 51. I enjoyed it.

**Favourite series. Of all time and recently?**

The Wire.

**What is the most random thing you’ve ordered online?**

A large cat litter box with a swing door, a roof and a skylight.

**What is the last thing on your phone that you took a screenshot of?**

A WhatsApp-based used car catalogue, which is also the number of a police detective, listed as the connection for a very serious crime I am looking at.

**What app do you spend the most time on?**

WhatsApp.

**What’s your favourite piece of trivia?**

I don’t like trivia.

**What’s the weirdest superstition you secretly believe in?**

I’m not superstitious.

**If you could relive one specific experience, what would it be?**

Surfing a wave. It doesn’t even have to be a good one.

**Window seat or aisle seat?**

Aisle.

**If you could live as someone else for the day, who would it be and why?**

My cat. His life seems nice.

**Career highlight?**

Toppling corrupt management at a corporation without even getting to publish the story.

**What are people always surprised to learn about you?**

My age.

**You’ve just been arrested. What crime were you likely to have committed?**

Smearing our dogs’ poo all over the front door of the people we sold our house to.

Or, more likely, journalism.

**If you weren’t working in your current role, what industry would you be in?**

When I was young, I aimed to be paid to protect a large wilderness, have a gun, and chase down bad guys. But if my police officer contact is anything to go by, I would be selling used cars.

**What is the most-worn item in your wardrobe?**

Shoes.

**What’s the best advice you’ve received?**

Take some shortcuts.

**Name one person you admire?**

I am catching up on work by Edward Said, and within a few days I have come to admire him greatly.

**What’s your current guilty pleasure?**

Smearing my dogs’ poo all over the front doors of people who wrong me.