There will never be a President Michael Bloomberg. Not unless some bankrupt African country decides to auction off the privilege to the highest bidder. But while Bloomy is no real threat to the Democrats or Republicans, his campaign is unintentionally telling the obvious truth about the role of the media.

The billionaire famously banned staff from his eponymous outlet from investigating him or fellow Dems while declaring an open season on President Trump. He responded to criticism by saying that his reporters, “get a paycheck. But with your paycheck comes some restrictions and responsibilities.”

Those restrictions and responsibilities are to serve the political interests of the guy signing the checks.

The distinction between Bloomberg’s media outlet and presidential campaign are non-existent. Five staffers from the outlet, an executive editor, news editor, senior editorial page editor, social media editor, and another editorial page editor, have joined the presidential campaign of the same name.

The name of the guy signing their paychecks.

In response, President Trump denied press credentials to Bloomberg News reporters to cover his campaign. That was followed by GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel stating that, "Media outlets should be independent and fair, and this decision proves that Bloomberg News is neither."

And that the GOP would no longer provide credentials to Bloomberg News personnel.

“We condemn any action that keeps quality news media from reporting fairly and accurately on the presidency and the leadership of the country,” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet objected.

But Is there anything wrong with banning political operatives from gaining access to your campaign?

“We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign," John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, insisted.

But the restrictions weren’t imposed by Trump, but by his own boss. Micklethwait can’t say so because of the signature on his paychecks. There are lots of things he can’t say and things that he must say.

In the memo put out by Micklethwait after his boss launched his campaign, he described the Bloomberg News "tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike's competitors differently from him." There's no problem though with treating his Republican competitors differently, as Micklethwait noted that, "our P&I team will continue to investigate the Trump administration."

Corruption can be a tradition. And refusing to investigate your own boss is corruption. Or it is if you accept the media’s self-definition as public interest organizations searching for the truth.

But as Michael Bloomberg demonstrated, the media are nothing more than political operatives.

The Media Research Center filed an FEC complaint against Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg News, and the Bloomberg 2020 campaign, for violating the law by giving Bloomberg, but not Trump, a pass.

"Bloomberg News knowingly and willfully announced that it would be giving the Candidate and the Candidate's Committee (as well as all candidates running for the Democratic nomination) a thing of value - continued investigations and reporting into the Candidate's political opponent while refraining from investigations into the Candidate," the complaint notes.

When Michael Bloomberg launched his campaign, he also announced that Bloomberg News would function as his political operatives. There’s no meaningful distinction between Bloomberg News where, as MRC points out, the guy whose name is on the masthead owns 89% of the shares, and the campaign. The journalists who work for Bloomberg News quickly switched, officially or unofficially, to political operatives working for the Bloomberg 2020 campaign. Which are both controlled by the same guy.

And he should be praised for his honesty.