The raging battle that finds Deputy President Jacob Zuma and the national director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, on opposite sides has imposed its share of strain and allied questions on whether or not the media has conducted itself with the desired professional detachment.

The situation became even more precarious when it seemed that Ngcuka's search for facts to establish a case against Zuma inadvertently inundated us with a puzzle in which the line between the media's quest for facts, to inform the public, and an investigation conducted in order to secure a conviction became difficult to make.

In the face of this puzzle, Ngcuka's off-the-record media briefing was bound to generate instalments of disputes as to whether such a practice is beneficial or hazardous to journalism.

While off-the-record briefings are common practice for journalists, due care should be exercised that such a practice is not elevated to a level of principle. To do so suggests that journalism cannot function without off-the-record briefings. It can function with or without such briefings.

If the pursuit for truth is the standing concern of the journalistic craft, then journalists should forever conduct themselves for its sake, no matter how unpalatable, rather than offer themselves as shock-troopers in defence of those that might stand accused by its expression.

At issue here is not whether journalists should take sides . The issue rather is whether journalists have conducted and are conducting themselves with principled even-handedness so as not to find themselves unwittingly reduced to being running dogs of disputing parties who are sworn to bark at Zuma and to wag their tails for Ngcuka, or vice versa.

The question doing the rounds is what if Zuma had sought his share of confidential briefing with the same editors whose audience Ngcuka had requested? Would they have obliged? And if they had, it is unlikely they would have remained forever united as to whose alleged misdemeanours to give attention to or not .

Whichever line each editor may have deemed it appropriate to take, the fact remains that the right to publish or not to publish rests finally with the editor - irrespective of how affected parties or allied sympathisers and well-wishers may feel about the matter.

As things stand, Zuma's office has been subjected to an uncomfortable, hovering spotlight. And so has Ngcuka's office, following claims of his alleged dim past. If both are equal before the law, is it not proper journalistic practice to allow the searchlight to beam with equal intensity on both?

If it is understandable and acceptable for fools to go full speed when it comes to Zuma, it will certainly raise questions if there is suddenly an angelic cause to tip-toe when it comes to Ngcuka.

There can be no denying that both Zuma and Ngcuka command the dearest appeal to the SA public precisely because both are champions of undertakings that are closest to their hearts - moral regeneration and crime-fighting in defence of a new-found democracy.

And the two have no right of way to bring it into disrepute. Neither do the journalists.

It's important to note, though, that the two are not on trial, but under investigation. The common focus of the investigations is whether they have conducted themselves according to the true code befitting their offices.

It is in balancing its act with regard to the Zuma/Ngcuka saga that the media is experiencing its stiffest test.

And if this debacle has degenerated into a muddy affair, the challenge lies in how to navigate a way to establish the truth through a criss-cross of agendas and warring interests and yet emerge with an integrity that is intact and clean.

It should accepted, firstly, that the mud that continues to stick to the offices of the deputy president and the national director of public prosecutions is not of the media's making.

Of interest to the media is any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Zuma and any indication of bad motive on the part of Ngcuka's investigations.

The media's expressed interest is not to secure a conviction of Zuma - that is the concern of the prosecuting authority to settle via the courts. Nor is it the media's duty to dragoon the public to confer innocence upon Ngcuka as it has no adjudicative competence to do so.

However, it remains the standing duty of the media to secure the facts of the matter for publication in order that the public can have its own summation of what may be happening - real or perceived.

When the tables seemed to be turned on Ngcuka, the dilemma as to whether to publish or not stared the editor of the Sunday Times, Mathatha Tsedu, and his City Press counterpart, Vusi Mona, in the face.

City Press decided to publish and the Sunday Times decided not to. In both cases, the final word rested with the newspapers' respective editors. Should the divergent stances by the two editors be of concern to the media fraternity?

The answer is no, since it is better for practitioners to fight over what is best for the country than to be united in fellowship of what may lead it down the slippery road normally traversed by banana republics.

The opposite stances adopted by Tsedu and Mona hold the promise that the possibility still exists for journalists to hold each other accountable.

In the end, whether one is proved to be wrong and the other right, at least neither of the two editors, Tsedu and Mona, can be blamed for failing to take a decision.

Ngwenya is a freelance journalist. He has written this article on the invitation of acting editor Wally Mbhele whose column appear.

With acknowledgements to Oupa Ngwenya and the City Press.