It’s amusing to observe how all South Africa’s major newspapers copped out from endorsing any political party in this week’s elections.

Instead there was “The M&G endorses … you!”, “this newspaper ( Sunday Times) will not be so condescending as to suggest who our readers should vote for” and so on. Oh please.

For seven years, these newspapers, and many others, surrendered their pages to editorial and caricature to construct the criminal cases against Jacob Zuma and project him as “evil”, “corrupt” and “unfit to lead”.

The National Prosecuting Authority’s mea culpa has betrayed the unholy bond between the media and those who conspired to destroy Zuma.

With Bulelani Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy against the ropes ­ their skulduggery and deception exposed and hard to defend ­ the editors who presented them as “honourable” men are now stranded.

The diet of leaked information has dried up.

Legitimate arguments for media self-regulation are rubbished by the fraternity’s track record in dealing with those who break the rules. For example, when the Sunday Independent ran consecutive stories about President Kgalema Motlanthe’s alleged affair with a young woman, and then later declared that she had lied ­ without so much as an apology ­ there was not a single rebuke from the media community. This week Zuma was asked how his government will relate to the media. In light of the total onslaught on Zuma the Accused, covering Zuma the President is of course going to be a challenging switch for the media.

But why should that be Zuma’s problem? Journalists became prisoners of this paradigm willingly, with the help of their friends in the NPA.

Zuma’s challenge is to govern and deliver on the ANC’s election promises. It is up to the media to find a way out of the corner they painted themselves into and migrate to a position of neutrality and credibility to report on the new government.

Commentators often bewail why Zuma is not more like United States President Barack Obama ­ urbane, polished, highly educated, visionary and a powerful orator.

The reason we know this about Obama is because the US media told us who he is, they unpacked and reflected on all dimensions of the man and displayed his strengths and weaknesses. Many major US newspapers had the courage of their convictions to either endorse Obama or his contender, taking a stand based on the information they presented to their readers.

Here, we have been bludgeoned media had written him off and only a handful of journalists were present. This week, with the full might of the ANC behind him, he stood in the same polling station across the valley from his rural home surrounded by cheering fans in the glare of the world’s media and voted for himself to become president.

While it was busy expressing its collective outrage at the very figure of Zuma, the media failed in its duty to explain that incredible transformation *1.

The media’s role in any democracy is to hold those in power accountable but there need not be an adversarial relationship with government.

By presenting Zuma over time as a figure of irredeemable evil, the media has burdened itself with an adversarial relationship with the incoming government.

President Zuma, like Zuma the Accused, could possibly function in amid continued media hostility.

But how will our media tell this new chapter of the South African story? It would be sad if they do so in the same way they told the one which just ended.

Ranjeni Munusamy is a communications consultant. She runs the Friends of Jacob Zuma website