You’ll have to trust me on this one. Back in the immediate aftermath of the police killing of Justine Ruszczyk — the Australian-born woman in her pajamas in an upscale neighborhod who so terrified a Minneapolis cop he shot her through the window of his patrol car — several journalists from Down Under landed in Minnesota to report on how authorities here were explaining that one.

The item I can’t find, but vividly remember, was one of the Aussie reporters commenting on how weirdly polite the local press was in press conferences with Minneapolis cops and city leaders. It was jarring, he said. The incident was nuts on the face of it. The cop was so freaked out and trigger happy — in a quiet, generally crime-free neighborhood — that he snapped and killed the nice lady in her jammies who reported a noise in her alley. But that withstandig, Minneapolis cops and leaders were up there day after day tap dancing, prevaricating and giving it the old All-American legalistic spin. “We must wait for all the facts to be known …” Yadda yadda.

The Aussie made the case that instead of any American reporter standing up and saying, in effect, “What the fuck are you talking about? He killed her! Who hires these people? Do they get any training at all?” the local press meekly played along with the bureaucratic, mumbo-jumo niceties of American cops ‘n press protocols. Maybe because freaked-out cops killing innocent civilians is so common here, no reporter feels the outrage anymore.

This all comes to mind (again) watching the Trump trial circus now unfolding in New York.

Last night Jon Stewart gored his cable news colleagues — most of them in the CNN and MSNBC universe — for the hours of over-coverage of Trump trial banalities they’ve already served up, pretending any of it has news value. Like for instance … OJ-style chopper coverage of Trump’s motorcade driving downtown to the court house. And … straight-faced analysis of … court room sketches. And … yet more of the tiredest of Trump-era cliches. Like the one about how this time “the walls really are closing in” on Donny JT. (Nine years and counting on that one.)

One item Stewart didn’t get to was the already ritual Trump-bullshit-and-whining appearance outside the court room every afternoon.

To paraphrase the Aussie, “WTF?!”

Are you telling me there isn’t anyone in the waiting press horde who can do a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and bellow back at the cartoonish fraud and fool, “Sir! Sir! What is worse? Your chronic flatulence or the appalling sleaze and cheesiness of your crimes?”

Obviously the answer is, “No. There’s no one who dares.” That would be so puerile and impertinent. So … so … unbefitting an interaction with a former POTUS.

So, no. There’s no one in the so-called legitimate, professional press who has yet taken the attitude that this guy is and has been for 40-plus years an absurd-to-obscene fraud, deserving of nothing more than derision and mockery … to his face. If the legal system wants to treat him like a super defendant, and allow him to tie it in knots and years of delays, well that’s fine. That’s their game. But what compels the press to play along?

The underlying point is that American journalism still hasn’t figured out the best — which is to say the most moral and ethical — way to cover a profane and dangerous circus act like Donald Trump. Despite giving him something like $5 billion in free advertising in 2016, a factor at least comparable to The Comey Letter in terms of pushing him over the top … in the Electoral College … the master plan for this current coverage, while less flattering, is predicated on sustaining ratings and ad revenue, just as it was in 2016.

Sorry. But I say we’re waaay past the point of requiring a much different game from “the media”. Certainly when Trump is standing there right in front of them and still lying his ass off.