When Vusi Mona appeared before the Hefer commission this week, it marked yet another low point in a disastrous year for journalism in South Africa.

Mona, a former City Press editor, took the stand to testify about an off-the-record meeting between National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka and newspaper editors.

He did so despite strong objections from his industry peers and his former colleagues at City Press.

Mona was forced to resign from the paper earlier this month amid allegations that he was involved in a communications company with business links to the Mpumalanga government.

A commission investigating the matter did not find him guilty, but it is understood he was forced out when members of his staff submitted a memorandum to management accusing him of tarnishing the newspaper's image by taking sides in the political battle between Ngcuka and Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

One of their complaints was that Mona had submitted an affidavit to the Human Rights Commission, the Public Protector and the Chief Justice complaining about Ngcuka's alleged remarks during the off-the-record meeting.

"That he violated the important principle of respecting off-the-record briefings means he can no longer be trusted by the reading public. Nor will sources be comfortable holding off-the-record briefings with any City Press journalists. Yet we are expected to break stories," reads the memorandum.

As he sat through a humiliating three-day cross-examination at the Hefer commission, Mona must have cursed his decision not to listen to his former colleagues.

Not only was he disgraced in the eyes of his peers, who regard the principle of confidentiality as sacrosanct, he was made to look like an unreliable witness under cross-examination.

The South African National Editors' Forum slammed Mona's testimony.

"If he did not accept the confidentiality of the briefing, he should have stated that at the time and left . . . For him to remain at the briefing and then state later that he did not accept it was in confidence is a gross breach of professional ethics," Sanef said.

The events of the past few months have profound implications that go far beyond the credibility of Mona or the newspaper he ran. Journalism itself is on trial.

In the same way that neither Ngcuka nor his chief accusers, Mac Maharaj and Mo Shaik, will come out of the battle without major scars, South African journalism cannot escape unscathed.

The activist role played by Mona and a few other journalists in the Ngcuka spy saga, make it difficult for media organisations to claim impartiality in a fight that looks set to rage beyond next year's elections.

Yet the media could easily have stayed out of the conflict by just sticking to the basics of journalism.

Difficult as it is, our main task is to report and to do so without fear or favour.

Equally important is the need to follow up on stories in order to avoid what happened in the case of KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Zweli Mkhize.

In 1999, Mkhize was reported to be under investigation by the Scorpions for gunrunning.

Four years later, no charges have been laid against him - and not one of the publications that carried stories about his "imminent arrest" back then have ever attempted to find out why.

As a result, Mkhize has remained a suspect in "the court of public opinion".

Whatever the outcome of the Hefer commission, the events of the past few months call for serious soul-searching by journalists.

With acknowledgements to S'thembiso Msomi and the Sunday Times.