New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India has its first-ever elected president, general secretary, and treasurer. Senior journalist Seema Mustafa, founder of the news website The Citizen, was elected as the president and Sanjay Kapoor, Editor of the Delhi-based Hardnews magazine was elected as the Guild’s general secretary. Anant Nath, editor of the Caravan magazine who was the only valid nomination for the post of treasurer, was elected unopposed. The election was conducted on October 16 and the results were announced on Saturday.
Until this election, members were chosen by consensus. The Editors Guild is considered the top body of editors, critically looking at both the media and the state. It was founded in 1978 with the two primary objectives of protecting press freedom and raising the standards of editorial leadership of newspapers and magazines. Before the elections, the guild was headed by Shekhar Gupta.
Of the 195 members, 140 members voted in the election. While Mustafa bagged 87 votes, her opponent M.D. Nalapat received 51 votes. For the general secretary’s position, ANI news agency’s Smita Prakash had contested against Kapoor. She bagged 50 votes, 40 less than Kapoor.
Interestingly editors like R. Jagannathan, who is the editorial director of Swarajya and Navika Kumar of Times Now, who had resigned from the Guild in the past, also participated in the election and supported Nalapat and Prakash’s candidature. They participated under the pretext that their resignation was not accepted.