Former New Straits Times (NST) group editor Mustapha Kamil has become the toast of the DAP for his decision to quit the English daily.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng hailed Mustapha as a journalist who "upholds journalism ethics".

This is despite Mustapha's 27 years service as a journalist in the mainstream media.

Guan Eng described Mustapha's decision as a "major sacrifice, but a noble move that should be respected".

"Mustapha resigned because he was not allowed to speak the truth," the Penang chief minister said at a press conference today.

Guan Eng was referring to Mustapha's resignation last month.

Mustapha's post on Facebook, which carried his explanation to the newspaper's CEO, went viral.

In it, he had said: "In my line of work, there is this element called the ‘truth discipline’.

"It is one that requires a journalist to be correct, right from the spelling of names of persons or places, to all the reports he must file.

"His responsibility is first to the truth, by which he must then guide society in navigating the path they had chosen."

Mustapha related how he had told the CEO that he had weighed the situation for as long as he could.

"But when an American newspaper, headquartered somewhere in Lower Manhattan in New York, wrote a story that got nominated for the coveted Pulitzer Prize, about an issue that happened right under my nose, I began to seriously search my conscience and asked myself why was I in journalism in the first place."

Referencing the post, Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang, who is Guan Eng's father, yesterday asked who would be the next to follow in Mustapha's footsteps to quit the newspaper.

In the press conference today, Lim read Mustapha’s Facebook post and said the latter was willing to pay the price without fear of being “blacklisted and blackballed”.

Kit Siang said Mustapha's resignation was akin to "shining a light in the dark".

"This is a journalist we can be proud of. They are the ones who refuse to sell out their principles," he added.