Did you hear about the Florida newspaper that apologised to its readers for running too much news that was critical of Donald Trump? It happened last week at the Daily Commercial, based in Leesburg, Florida, in a conservative-leaning area of the state with a lot of affluent retirees nearby.

The editors published an open letter to readers in which they wrote: “The Daily Commercial hasn’t done enough to mitigate the anti-Trump wave in the pages of this paper . . . This is not an endorsement of Trump, a candidate whose brutish, sometimes childish antics are responsible for his sizeable deficit in the polls. Rather, it is a recognition that you, the voter, deserve better than we in the media have given you. You deserve a more balanced approach.”

I have frequently observed in my press criticism that mainstream journalists sometimes place protecting themselves against criticism before serving their readers. This is troubling because that kind of self-protection has far less legitimacy than the duties of journalism, especially when the criticism itself is barely valid. This is how the phrase “working the refs” got started. Political actors try to influence judgment calls by screeching about bias, whether the charge is warranted or not.

My favourite description of “protecting ourselves against criticism” comes from a former reporter for the Washington Post, Paul Taylor, in his 1990 book about election coverage, See How They Run. I have quoted it many times:

“Sometimes I worry that my squeamishness about making sharp judgments, pro or con, makes me unfit for the slam-bang world of daily journalism. Other times I conclude that it makes me ideally suited for newspapering – certainly for the rigours and conventions of modern ‘objective’ journalism. For I can dispose of my dilemmas by writing stories straight down the middle. I can search for the halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone (or some policy or idea) and write my story in that fair-minded place. By aiming for the golden mean, I probably land near the best approximation of truth more often than if I were guided by any other set of compasses - partisan, ideological, psychological, whatever . . . Yes, I am seeking truth. But I’m also seeking refuge. I’m taking a pass on the toughest calls I face.”

I am seeking truth. But I’m also seeking refuge. What if it’s not possible to do both?

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This is what the editors of the Daily Commercial failed to ask themselves. And this is what the movement for Trump is forcing journalists everywhere in the US to realise, even if word hasn’t reached Leesburg, Florida.

A few weeks ago, Dean Baquet, editor of the New York Times, said Donald Trump had changed journalism. Baquet said: “I was either editor or managing editor of the LA Times during the Swift Boat incident. Newspapers did not know – we did not quite know how to do it. I remember struggling with the reporter, Jim Rainey, who covers the media now, trying to get him to write the paragraph that laid out why the Swift Boat allegation was false . . . We didn’t know how to write the paragraph that said: ‘This is just false . . .’ We struggle with that. I think that Trump has ended that struggle.”

Some of you may wonder: in 1990, in 2004 or in 2016 how could it be hard to say in a news report “this is false” when the reporter and the editor are both persuaded that it is false? I have an answer for you. Alongside the production of news, reporters and editors in the mainstream press have for a long time been engaged in another manufacture: persuading us of their own innocence, especially when it comes to a contested election.

Trump has ended the struggle in this sense: by openly trashing the norms of American politics, Trump has made it a certainty that when honest journalism is done about him it also works against him, by exposing his many falsehoods. Because of the way he campaigns – because of who he is – when he’s in the news he’s typically losing ground.

For journalists this destroys the illusion of innocence: just by doing your job you are undoing Trump . . . unless he can turn his portion of the electorate against you so decisively that the very possibility that you may be trying to do an honest job is rejected out of hand.

And then the disaster is complete, for now by doing your job (applying scrutiny, checking facts) you are actually helping Trump, confirming among his most committed supporters the hateful image of a media elite trying to rig the election. Either way the production of innocence fails.

In this vexing situation the Daily Commercial of Leesburg, Florida published its open letter to readers. Unable to think it through clearly, the editors surrendered their right to speak truth to power and sold out their colleagues in the national press.

“Yes, I am seeking truth. But I’m also seeking refuge.” For journalists covering this election, and for the American press in the years after, the days of doing both are over. Pick one.

– Guardian syndication