In late August, climate hawk and too-occasional BRAD BLOG contributor D.R. Tucker reported how MSNBC's August 16th Chris Hayes hosted documentary on climate change and the global warming denial industry, was nowhere to be found online. Unlike previous docs from the cable net, this one had not made available online after its initial airing.

Despite our best efforts at the time to receive an explanation from MSNBC or Chris Hayes or the producers of his nightly prime-time show, All In (which produced and presented the doc during their normal hour), as to why the special had not been posted online, several weeks went by and we received no response.

The unexplained online "black out" of Politics of Power led Tucker to wonder, by August 29th, if "certain entities" (such as ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel industry corporations, global warming deniers and other similarly big advertisers on MSNBC) "might not be happy with the prospect of the video being widely available and, who knows, maybe even going viral."

Well, we've still received no direct response to our queries from Hayes or anyone at MSNBC as to the whereabouts of the "missing" documentary, or the explanation for it. But while browsing some video clips recently at the MSNBC website, I just happened to come across this graphic amongst a list of video clips available on the site...

Clicking on it brought me to a page with this explanation:

"A few of our viewers".

The page pointing to the "On Demand" version of the special looks to have been created on September 10, about 12 days after our initial article and persistent questioning about where the heck the documentary was, and almost a full month after the film had aired on MSNBC.

Unfortunately, for me, I was in the mountains and off the grid when it originally ran and still won't be able to see it in its entirely, apparently. The "On Demand" providers listed (Comcast, Verizon, Dish, Mediacom, Suddenlink) do not happen to include mine. But you may be luckier.

In the meantime, the following clip of the first 10 minutes of Politics of Power was posted on the page cited above. So, mystery partially solved. But the question as to why the documentary was not made available in full online for all at the MSNBC site --- as, for example, Rachel Maddow's Hubris: Selling the Iraq War had been, immediately after its first airing --- remains unanswered.

And, hey, MSNBC and/or All In With Chris Hayes, would it have killed ya to respond to our very polite queries?

                 

Article Categories: MSNBC, Mainstream Corporate Media, Mainstream Media Failure, Environment, Coal, Chris Hayes, Oil, Climate change