ABC, NBC, CNN avoid airing Trump's primetime election security address live

Three networks, one president, zero coverage. That's not an accident, and it's not a coincidence either. When a sitting president asks for airtime to talk about election security, the decision to skip it live tells you something about how these networks think of themselves. They're not just choosing what to cover anymore. They're choosing what the public gets to hear straight from the source, unfiltered, before their own anchors get a chance to spin it for them.

Compare that to how much dead air got burned covering speculation, leaks, and anonymous-source pieces over the years. Suddenly, when the topic is election security and the speaker is Trump, there's no room in primetime. Funny how that works. If a Democratic president wanted to address the country on a topic this charged, does anyone believe ABC, NBC, and CNN would have quietly passed?

The excuse will be that the speech didn't merit live coverage, or that it was political rather than official business. Maybe. But that's a judgment call these networks are making unilaterally, on behalf of tens of millions of viewers who never got to decide for themselves. That's the part that should bother people regardless of who they voted for. You don't have to like the message to think the public deserved the chance to hear it and judge it themselves.

None of this is new for Trump, and it won't be the last time. But every time it happens, it chips away a little more at the idea that these networks are neutral arbiters of what's newsworthy. They're not refs anymore. They're players who've decided which team they're on.