MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was called out Friday night after his “All In” apparently lifted video from the work of journalist Jason Koebler at independent media outlet 404 Media. Hayes issued a brief apology when Koebler raised the issue on X (formerly Twitter). “100% my bad. Very sorry. Should have credited, and just a mistake not to,” Hayes replied. “I’d be pissed if I were you too.” He went on to share a link to the original story.
Hayes’ segment was about microtargeting in the 2024 election. He included a video that showed social media ads microtargeted at Muslim and Jewish voters in swing states, all of which were run by the same pro-Trump PAC — funded by Elon Musk. The problem is that Hayes didn’t pull or find the videos himself, nor did anyone on his team. Koebler noted that he spent hours pulling Snapchat CSV files himself.
Tagging Hayes on X, Koebler publicly asked, “where did you pull this video from? how did you get it? how did you know about it? did you get it from the independent journalist-owned publication that you didnt mention and didn’t link to? do you understand how important or useful it would have been to mention us?”
“did you happen to find it on your own or from my article and tweet that has been viewed a million times,” the independent journalist continued before adding, “did you figure out how to search Snapchat’s CSV files that have thousands of entries on your own or did you just randomly decide to talk to the new york times reporter who didn’t actually have the story.”
Following his direct apology, Hayes shared the link to the original 404 story publicly and praised the reporting as well as noting he and his team should have credited it on air. Koebler’s article, “This Is Exactly How an Elon Musk-Funded PAC Is Microtargeting Muslims and Jews With Opposing Messages,” was published just before noon on Friday, ahead of Hayes’ segment running Friday night.
Koebler wrote on X that this isn’t the first time a major news outlet has lifted 404 Media’s content without proper attribution, an unfortunately common practice. He tweeted, “i have not beefed with any outlet for not mentioning us for like a year because we don’t need it. we have figured out how to make it work without you adhering to even the most basic s–t. i have ignored all of the places taking our stories without linking but come on.”
Requests for comment sent to both MSNBC and Koebler were not immediately returned.
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