With Michael Bloomberg running for the US presidency, the news service that bears his name said it will not “investigate” him or any of his Democratic rivals, and Bloomberg Opinion will no longer run unsigned editorials.

Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait announced the new rules in a note to his news organisation’s 2,700 journalists and analysts shortly after the former New York City mayor announced his candidacy.

“There is no point in trying to claim that covering this presidential campaign will be easy for a newsroom that has built up its reputation for independence in part by not writing about ourselves,” Mr Micklethwait wrote.

Mr Bloomberg started the service in 1990 to complement the financial information he sold to customers. It has since expanded, with its news available in many formats, including a television and radio network, and ‘Bloomberg Businessweek’ magazine.

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Mr Micklethwait said Bloomberg reporters will cover polls, policies and how the Bloomberg campaign is doing much like it does for all candidates. But it will not do investigative stories on Mr Bloomberg and, to be fair, any Democratic contenders.

It will continue to investigate the Trump administration, he said.

By continuing to cover Mr Trump aggressively, it seems Bloomberg is setting it up to have different rules for different candidates. Mr Micklethwait pointed out the situation is different because Mr Trump is already president and the work of his administration is fair game.

If other credible news organisations do investigative stories on Mr Bloomberg or other Democrats, the news service will summarise them or publish them in full, he said.

“We will not hide them,” he said.

To anyone who believes the news service shouldn’t cover Mr Bloomberg at all, he said Bloomberg News “has handled these conflicts before – and proved our independence”.

The situation presents an ethical tightrope. When Bloomberg was considering a candidacy in 2016, the news service’s politics news director in Washington, Kathy Kiely, quit and said she did not feel she could do her job without covering Mr Bloomberg aggressively.

Ms Kiely said on Sunday that the new rules “relegate his political writers to stenography journalism… it’s not satisfying for journalists and it’s not satisfying for readers. I think people will go elsewhere for in-depth political coverage”.

Bloomberg should step completely away from his news organisation and let it operate independently, she said.

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