MSNBC’s fracking push revealed in new documents

New documents reveal how the supposedly ‘liberal’ cable news network MSNBC pushed the polluting gas extraction method known as fracking to its audience, in a calculated example of the mainstream media shilling for its corporate interests.

Documents obtained from Oklahoma State University (OSU) through the state’s Open Records Act reveal a clear decision by MSNBC to promote fracking along with natural gas as "solutions" to America's energy problems.

Created in 2011, when General Electric owned 49 percent of the MSNBC’s parent company NBCUniversal and Comcast had a 51 percent, the emails discuss recording episodes of the now-cancelled Dylan Ratigan Show at the university.

T Boone Pickens, an oil and gas magnate and hedge fund owner, was a guest on one of the episodes talking about his plan to engage in dangerous fracking through corporate welfare subsidies like tax breaks.

Instead of branding him as an "environmental terrorist," Congress introduced his New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act (NAT GAS), HR 1380, just days after the three-part energy segment aired.

READ MORE: Walden pond cabin built for Thoreau-inspired fracking pipeline

The act, which eventually didn’t pass, was promoted by President Barack Obama, who described Pickens in an address at Georgetown University as “a businessman who made his fortune on oil, but who is out there making the simple point that we can't simply drill our way out of our energy problems.”

Fracking: The process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside.

Despite the president’s kind words and Hillary Clinton's push for fracking around the world when she was Secretary of State, Pickens now raises money for her opponent, fellow billionaire Donald Trump.

The show was part of a Steel on Wheels tour, which was sponsored by steel company Nucor.

Ratigan said he traveled around the US on a bus to get “this country back on track.” However, after his show was later cancelled, he reportedly sold his loft in Tribeca and drove his Porsche to California to start an organic vegetable farm with his wife.

MSNBC started running ads on its website for fracking lobbyists, including America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), in 2013, reports Desmog.  

In November 2012, Pickens’ gas company Clean Energy Fuels Corporation bought GE gas fueling equipment.

Documents reveal discussions surrounding guests and how Josh Fox, an anti-fracking voice, would not be invited to the show.

Instead, a former CEO of Shell Oil and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, a long-time climate change denier, were featured.

Josh Fox did end up appearing on the show, but received hostile treatment from Ratigan.

“I want to have a conversation to solve the problem with you. I'm not looking to have a propaganda speech from you more than I am from Boone Pickens or anybody else,” Ratigan said.

MSNBC recently decided to end the charade that they are a left-leaning network, even though their line-up was predominantly pro-Obama centrists like Al Sharpton and Melissa Harris-Perry.

A new promo for the network touts a conservative future by showing Republican hosts.

“People might start accusing us of leaning too far to the right,” it reads.