With his widely publicized apology for hyping up the pizzagate story, Infowars’ Alex Jones just became The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

By aggressively reporting the story without sufficient supporting facts to back up his assertions, Jones just handed the real pedophiles in Washington D.C. — no matter where they lurk — an instant defense against future accusations of pedophilia (even if they’re backed by strong evidence).

“It’s all fake news,” they’ll say. “Remember the pizzagate fake news story that InfoWars pursued and then apologized for?” With a simple wave of their hand — plus the mandatory eye roll — they can now dismiss any accusations as being fake.

This is the cost of pushing a story too hard, too fast and with too few facts. With pizzagate, Alex Jones just did what the entire mainstream media has done with the “Russians hacked the election” conspiracy theory: Ran with a bunch of rumors and suspicious coincidences that were spun up to the point where they seemed to make a good story. But just like the Russiagate conspiracy, the pizzagate fiasco — regardless of whether it’s really true or not — couldn’t be supported by sufficient facts to back up InfoWars’ reporting.

That’s the mistake in all this. If he hopes to continue in the world of alternative news, Alex Jones needs to learn that he can’t just go with “gut feelings” on a story this big and this damning. You actually have to gather evidence first, then report on the evidence you have so that you can back up your reports with irrefutable facts.

Sadly, InfoWars’ pursuit of this sensationalized viral story got so far ahead of the supportable evidence that it’s obvious Alex Jones has been threatened with a sizeable lawsuit over the whole fiasco. His highly publicized public apology was clearly half-written by lawyers in the hope that it might dissuade a lawsuit that must be imminent. Perhaps the publicly apology was demanded to avoid the lawsuit entirely. Either way, it has all brought serious damage to the credibility of InfoWars, which I find frustrating because I’m a fan of people like Paul Joseph Watson, Darren McBreen and many others there who have engaged in such solid reporting year after year.

Here’s the official InfoWars apology video, which has already garnered over 250K views on YouTube alone:

Here’s an analysis of the Jones apology by David Seaman, who explains that in his view, pizzagate is still very real (video contains some profanity):

Natural News and NewsTarget never covered Pizzagate

As you ponder all this, consider the easily confirmed fact that Natural News and NewsTarget never covered pizzagate.

Ever wonder why?

Yes, I looked into it. And yes, everybody was sending me video links, URLs, tips and the latest “findings” about pizzagate. I read the Podesta emails, too, and there’s no question the guy has some sort of weird fetish about pizza, UFOs and all sorts of other topics. But I was unable to confirm any of the key pizzagate assertions as being supportable with evidence. Whether or not I believed the accusations myself, I could not support them with sufficient evidence to go public with a credible story. (And besides, I’m focused on other topics anyway, including science, nutrition and survival preparedness.)

No doubt there really are pedophilia rings in Washington D.C. — and there’s little doubt that all sorts of lawmakers and bureaucrats are sicko types who get their jollies from kiddie exploitation — but unless you really have evidence that can back you up, going public with all sorts of stories rooted in little more than accusations doesn’t really get you anywhere. (The fake news mainstream media is about to discover the exact same thing when the entire Russiagate story blows up in their faces, too, by the way…)

Sadly, InfoWars has done not just serious damage to its own reputation with all this; it has also, by extension, cast some degree of doubt across the entire independent media. The mainstream media is already running wild with stories like “Alex Jones admits InfoWars is fake news,” and it’s only a matter of time before the same accusation is used to smear even those of us who never participated in the pizzagate fiasco.

Personally, I’m glad that citizen journalists and analysts are looking into the larger issue of pedophilia, human trafficking and other heinous crimes being carried out against women and children right here in America. I hope every pedophile in the country is exposed, arrested and imprisoned, and I wonder why the media seems to whitewash pedophilia bombshells when they involve politically connected people. But suspicion alone is not evidence on a story this damning, so until stronger evidence surfaces on all this, I can’t report it as a story.

Despite this huge mistake, Alex Jones has been right far more often than he’s been wrong

Because I’ve been around the InfoWars operation as a volunteer substitute radio host — a gig that ended in 2013 — I know Jones has a strong tendency to run with a story far beyond what the evidence can support. In fairness, that’s sometimes called “analysis,” and Jones has been ahead of the curve on so many stories that he’s right far more often than he’s wrong.

The whole “CIA is spying on you through your TV” revelations now documented by Wikileaks (see “Weeping Angel”) was exposed a decade earlier by Jones, and he’s been spot on about government surveillance, collusion between Google and the NSA, rise of the robots and more. He’s gone after corruption, fraud and collusion at every level, and he’s brought many issues to light that would have otherwise stayed swept under the rug. So he deserves credit for all that.

Yet he also seems to take many stories “a bridge too far” and seems to often leap to a conclusion that has little or no support. This is even more true on the topic of child abuse, which Jones finds so abhorrent and anti-human that he often loses control over his own emotions when covering the subject. From a humanitarian point of view, that’s entirely understandable — who wouldn’t want to wring the necks of violent pedophiles who rape little boys and girls? — but from a journalism point of view, emotions can sometimes blind Jones to the lack of supportable evidence in an important story. His ability to control his emotions is going to be key to restoring his credibility, especially on the subjects of pedophilia, child trafficking and child abuse.

Alex Jones gets attacked from both sides now… it’s a no-win situation

So it’s a mixed bag with Jones: Sometimes he nails it; other times he flubs it badly. While the same might be said of all journalists, with Jones, everything is bigger and more pronounced, including all the emotions behind the reporting: outrage, fear, disgust, excitement, anger and so on. Alex Jones is essentially like a regular, patriotic American man who loves his children and whose emotional dials have been turned up to full blast. Everything with Jones and InfoWars is bigger, more intense, more emotionally charged and presented with far higher stakes.

I parted ways with InfoWars in 2013, and although I’ve defended Jones when he’s been right — such as his recent warning about the gender bender effects of atrazine — I’m also not afraid to call him out when he’s wrong. On the pizzagate story, he’s made a serious error. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to the pedo activity in D.C., by the way, it just means InfoWars never really had enough evidence to back it up, so running with the story was a serious tactical error. Alex Jones clearly ran this story so far out ahead of the legitimate evidence or facts that he’s now had to pull every article, video and broadcast archive that mentioned pizzagate.

The bottom line is that Jones has guts, courage and is a true patriot who loves America, but he also has a tendency to play fast and loose with the story on certain topics that trigger his own emotional reaction or that he sees as being wildly popular across mainstream culture. (For example, what was his silly fascination with Charlie Sheen for all those years? Classic Alex Jones quote: “I’m not name dropping or anything, but Charlie Sheen listens to this show…”)

If Jones doesn’t mature as a news director and start sorting out fact from fiction in a much more objective and impersonal manner, he’s going to nosedive InfoWars into the ground while doing quite a lot of damage to the rest of the independent media at the same time. For this reason alone, I hope Jones “cowboys up” to a higher standard of journalism and focuses his future efforts on reporting what’s real instead of what’s the most damningly intriguing. After all, isn’t that the very thing we all condemn the democrats for doing when it comes to Russiagate?

David Seaman says pizzagate is real, while condemning Jones for apologizing

Pizzagate analyst David Seaman is also fed up with Jones over all this and has announced he’s unsubscribing from InfoWars. Seaman says “pizzagate is real” and thinks Jones is “insincere” and selfish, acting only “to protect your business.” As you’ll see in the video below, Seaman remains convinced that the pizzagate pedo ring in Washington D.C. is quite real. “I mostly believe pizzagate is real,” he explains. “I have to unsubscribe from Alex Jones because I no longer trust him.”

So really, Jones now finds himself in an impossible position: Forced to apologize for covering pizzagate while being blasted as untrustworthy by those who remain convinced it’s all very real. From both directions, Jones has just lost a considerable degree of credibility, even among those who tend to believe his less rigorously-supported assertions that might not be well supported by legitimate evidence.

After all, the last thing you want to be in the world of independent journalism is The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Watch Seaman’s commentary on Alex Jones, below, to learn more: (profanity)

NOTE: (This video may have already been pulled, or banned, but the essence of the video is that Seaman expresses frustration with Jones for backing away from the pizzagate story.)