The Glenn Kessler controversy is shaking the media world after the former Washington Post fact-checker admitted he was “completely wrong” to dismiss the COVID-19 lab leak theory. In May 2020, Kessler ran a fact check under the headline: “Was the New Coronavirus Accidentally Released From a Wuhan Lab? It’s Doubtful.” Last week, he confessed that he personally added “It’s Doubtful” to the headline. “I screwed up,” Kessler said in an interview. “Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect.”
The Washington Post had been among the first major outlets to smear the Wuhan lab leak theory as a “coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” Yet in 2023, both the FBI and Department of Energy issued assessments pointing to a lab leak as the “most likely” origin of the virus. Kessler admitted he has “infinite regret” over the headline, acknowledging that the weight of his role as the Post’s “Fact Checker” magnified the damage.
For years, conservatives criticized Kessler’s work as biased, pointing to his “Pinocchio” ratings that disproportionately targeted Republicans while shielding Democrats. He dismissed videos of Joe Biden appearing confused as “misleading,” even though former White House chief of staff Ron Klain admitted Biden was “fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged.” Kessler also advanced the “Russiagate” hoax during President Donald Trump’s first term, another major failure for the mainstream press.
Kessler, who left the Post last month after 14 years, defended his record, claiming only “a dozen bad apples” out of “3,000 fact checks.” But his admission underscores the cost of partisan journalism. As he conceded, “When you’ve got a title like ‘the Fact Checker,’ when you make a mistake, people notice. So, you know, you’ve got to own it.”
