As RedState reported, new classified intelligence from the US Department of Energy reportedly shows that a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. That comes after years of censorship of the theory under the guise of policing “misinformation.”

In the wake of that, the bill is coming due for some in the press who rushed to vehemently defend China and push the farcical notion that the virus originated naturally and spread via a wet market. One of those people is The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, who is ostensibly their top “fact-checker.”

Back in mid-2020, there was a desperate attempt to blame COVID-19 on Donald Trump, and part of that gambit was the dismissal of the lab leak theory. Why? Because if the virus was created in a lab via otherwise banned gain-of-function research, China would hold full moral responsibility for its spread. The orange man was bad, though, so Kessler and others just couldn’t allow that to be the narrative.

I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves. https://t.co/TprMnaHSZL

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) May 1, 2020

Think about how absurd Kessler’s original post was, which came just four months after COVID-19 became publicly known. In the midst of all that chaos and confusion, he actually believed that an animation put out by the Post was definitive. His proclamation that “we deal in facts” was dripping with condescension toward Cruz.

Here’s the “how it started” and “how it’s going” side-by-side to illustrate just how wrong Kessler was.

Oof it’s gotta hurt to be so wrong pic.twitter.com/XZJaLYqXlH

— Matt Dawson (@SaintRPh) February 26, 2023

Has there ever been a better illustration of why appeals to authority are often meaningless? Kessler snarked that the Post had done “many interviews with actual scientists.” But who were those scientists? And why did they turn out to be so wrong? Did the Post bother to vet them or look at their claims with any skepticism? Of course, not, because to do so might have left them giving credence to Cruz’s statement, which also happened to be what the Trump administration was saying as well.

Take this as an important lesson. When a news outlet cites “experts,” they are usually just cherry-picking people with credentials who support the narrative they want to promote. That’s what the Post was doing way back in 2020, and that’s what Kessler was doing in citing that report as infallible. It wasn’t about getting to the truth. It was about finding people who would give them the political fodder they desired.

The wet market theory never made any sense. How could the Chinese have possibly known the virus came from a bat in a specific wet market? And why would anyone be expected to believe anything they said? The lab leak theory was always Occam’s razor in this case. It was the simplest, most practical explanation for what happened. That so many in the press trashed those who were simply asking questions is another blight on an industry that has already destroyed its credibility.