Former Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has admitted he was “completely wrong” to label the COVID-19 lab leak theory as “doubtful” in 2020 — a headline he now admits fueled mistrust in fact-checking and misrepresented the uncertainty at the time.
Speaking in an interview with theeditors.com founder Ira Stoll, Kessler confronted the fallout from the March 2020 fact check headlined “Was the new coronavirus accidentally released from a Wuhan lab? It’s doubtful.” Kessler said he personally added the “it’s doubtful” line — a decision he now regrets.
“One of the reporters on the piece came up to me the next day and said, ‘I think you made a real mistake by putting “it’s doubtful” here. Because I’m uncertain where it stands, and you framed it in a way that made it seem more definitive than what we came up with,’” Kessler recalled. “That’s on me. I screwed up… I was completely wrong about this.”
Kessler argued that the original fact check focused primarily on debunking claims that COVID-19 was a bioweapon, rather than fully addressing the broader possibility of an accidental lab release. Still, he conceded that the definitive-sounding headline — and his own public comments — overshadowed the nuance in the piece.
At the time, the fact check declared that scientific evidence “strongly supports” a natural origin and suggested that “too many unexpected coincidences” would be required for a lab leak to be plausible, while acknowledging China’s refusal to provide more information. But Kessler himself wrote on Twitter in 2020 that it was “virtually impossible” for the virus to have come from a lab.
In 2021, as new information emerged, Kessler revised his assessment, writing that the lab leak theory had “suddenly become credible.” He partially blamed his earlier skepticism on the Trump administration’s handling of the claim, saying officials relied on “vague intelligence” and packaged it with anti-China rhetoric that made it easier for critics to dismiss.
The Washington Post was among the earliest outlets to reject the lab leak theory outright, calling it a “coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked” in February 2020.
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3 Responses
People have a hard time with nuances. He is saying it was 50/50, and he is wrote it to be 70/30. But the conspiracy theorists in our midsts, who are only looking for narratives which will add excitement to their lives, are convinced that 100% the virus originated in a biolab, and most likely engineered by Bill Gates to depopulate Earth
“SARSCOV2” manifested in Wuhan, Hubei in Oct. 2019. It was an extraordinary yet natural emergence of a truly novel virus. It was not “Man Made” and was 100% not the result of a Lab Leak either intentional or accidental.
Some background…
On Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, 31/12/2019 at 22.00 CEST whilst in Paris doing my usual work of Horizon Scanning and Auditing world events, I noticed an update from Flu Trackers about a strange Pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China. I then spent the next four hours, researching Chinese media sources and other sources. Over the next 3 days I spent a further 20 hours researching all I could about what was going on. I knew something was up.
On the 3rd Jan. 2020 I wrote this publicly on Twitter/X and addressed it to : China’s UN Rep., the WHO, the OIE and Michael Coston:
Why the info. delay from China’s MofH with this Wuhan oubreak? 🤔 Is it a novel virus? 🐷 ASF 🐗 gone zoonotic? 😳
On the 7th Jan. 2020 I wrote, addressed to the same people as the above message:
The most important info. re. the Wuhan outbreak that needs to be revealed now 🤔 = “What virus is it?” China has some top class 🧪🔬 labs & 👩🔬👨🔬 virologists. Why the go-slow with this information?
On the 12th Jan. 2020 I wrote, addressed to the same people plus Dr. Tedros:
41 people 🔬 confirmed with Wuhan novel zoonotic Hashtag 2019nCoV 🦠. 1 has died, 2 discharged, and 7 remain in serious condition. (The other 31 ???) + France 24 article. So CFR is at least 2.4% and possibly up to 19.5%+ yes? P.S. How many other cases out there now? 🤔
Note: I was the first person in the world to use the 2019nCoV hashtag on Twitter. This hashtag was used more than 250,000 times in the next few months. (On 11 Feb. 2020, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses adopted the official name “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” SARS‑CoV‑2 and this hashtag overtook the 2019nCoV one)
By mid Jan. 2020, I hade worked out that the novel virus, that was later named “SARSCOV2”, had manifested in Wuhan, Hubei in Oct. 2019. It was an extraordinary yet natural emergence of a truly novel virus. It was not “Man Made” and was 100% not the result of a Lab Leak either intentional or accidental.
It’s emergence was extraordinary because it was perfectly adapted right from the get-go to allow Human to Human transmission, which happened from late Oct. 2019 onwards. (The Wuhan Wholesale and Seafood Market was not the origin of the outbreak but was a place where numerous Human to Human transmissions took place in Dec. 2019).
I know more about the Why, When, Who, What, Where and How of SARSCOV2 than anyone else alive. CCP Intel is sitting on key data about the Index Case and early cases in Wuhan from Oct. to early Dec. 2019. CCP Intel knows that I know this.
The fact is I was “Way Ahead of the Curve” on 31/12/2019 and was correct with my warnings. (On 10th Jan. 2020 I recommended a Cordon Sanitaire for Wuhan)
For one piece of the SARSCOV2 – COVID19 Jigsaw Puzzle, interested people should read the following paper by Michael Worobey et al:
“Timing the SARS-CoV-2 index case in Hubei province” (Published 23/4/2021)
זה הוא שמגלה את הדברים העמוקים והנסתרים; הוא יודע מה יש בחושך, והאור שוכן איתו.
😎
Adam Neira
Founder of World Peace 2050
Founded in April 2000
Paris – Jerusalem – Melbourne
so the guy did something stupid. rather than re-fact-checking the fact-checking, everybody, including him, can agree that the 2020 headline was a mistake, but 5 years later, it’s water under the bridge. the question now is whether he should be dehired for it.