Infowars apologizes for spreading #Pizzagate conspiracy

Months after a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton's involvement in a child trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria blew up from a very fake news story to a real-life shooting, fringe right-wing media outlet Infowars is apologizing for its role in spreading the completely false narrative.

During Alex Jones' broadcast Friday on his site, Infowars, he admitted that what became known as Pizzagate was "based upon what we now believe was an incorrect narrative."

Jones made it clear that the falsely implicated Comet Ping Pong restaurant, employees and its owner James Alefantis deserved an apology. "I made comments about Mr. Alefantis that in hindsight I regret, and for which I apologize to him."

Here's a portion of Jones' on-air statement:

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Jones blamed other media outlets and former reporters for "third-party accounts of alleged activities and conduct at the restaurant." He noted that Infowars was "far from the genesis of this story" and in recent months had backed away from its reporting and information from other sources, even going as far to remove certain stories and commentaries from the site.

"This was an ever-evolving story," he said.

Here's the entire statement and apology as recorded by Media Matters:

It's not clear what prompted the on-air apology now seeing as Pizzagate came to a head in early December, but this is a big step in the fight against fake news.