Journalist Quits Editors Guild Of India, Says ‘Complete Silence’ In Case Against Her

Shillong: Patricia Mukhim, editor of The Shillong Times and also a Padma Shri awardee has resigned from the Editors Guild of India, alleging that the top journalists’ body “defends” only celebrity journalists, NDTV reported.

In her resignation letter, a copy of which is available with NDTV, Patricia Mukhim gave the example of how the journalists’ body responded with “alacrity”, and issued a statement condemning TV news anchor Arnab Goswami’s arrest but did not issue any statement in her case.

It may be recalled that last week, the Meghalaya High Court had refused to act over a police complaint filed against her for a Facebook post she had put out in July.

Mukhim claimed that she had briefed the top journalists’ body in detail about this case. “I now wish to resign from its membership. There are several reasons for doing so. First, as a journalist, I don’t belong to that august league of celebrity editors whose newspapers are widely read and web-based news portals are hugely popular,” she said in her letter, the report said.

“I come from the fringes both geographically and in terms of my own status in an association I consider hierarchical by its very composition. I had shared this High Court order with the Guild hoping that it would at least give out a statement condemning it but there was and has been complete silence from the executive,” she added.

“Ironically, the Guild responded with alacrity and issued a statement condemning Arnab Goswami’s arrest (a non-member), not on grounds of journalistic pursuits but on an abetment to suicide case. I see this as a classic case of the Guild playing to the gallery to defend celebrity editors/ anchors whose voices matter while choosing to deliberately ignore a plea (unstated) from one of its members,” Mukhim wrote in a strongly-worded letter to Seema Mustafa, the newly elected president of Editors Guild of India, it further said.

Mukhim had criticised the Lawsohtun village council for failing to identify the “murderous elements”, when masked people attacked five boys at a basketball court in the village in a Facebook post on July 4. No one was arrested in the case, NDTV reported.