That's not what this is about.
It erupted across every news channel precisely as Pizzagate did. If you searched on Google News for "Pizzagate", what you would get was "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!"
The MSM hasn't been this desperate since it was shrieking to high heaven there was no chance in any universe in which Donald Trump could possibly win the US election. Whether this is because the MSM is desperate to cover up this issue - like the Pizzagate investigators allege - or there is some other coordinated motive at play (like not losing control of the narrative), its obvious the campaign is coordinated and aimed at some specific desired outcome, one way or the other.
Pizzagate itself is just a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is not necessarily evidence of a crime, and often leads people looking at it to jump to incorrect conclusions. But trying to sweep it under the rug with frantic cries of "FAKE NEWS!!1!" does nothing but make conspiracy theories grow.
There are some extremely strangely-worded emails that came out of John Podesta's Wikileaks. All kinds of bizarre pictures on Comet Ping Pong's Instagram. They use code words identified by the FBI as pedophile code words - but it could be coincidence. One of the neighboring pizza restaurants to Comet Ping Pong had an FBI-identified pedophile symbol in its logo (since removed) - but it could be coincidence.
What a real journalist would do is say, "Huh. There's a lot of odd circumstantial evidence here. Let's get to the bottom of this and either rule it out or see what questions are still on the table."
What the MSM is doing instead is taking down articles on high level pedophile rings, like this one that no longer exists on NY Times:
http://archive.is/uq4oF
Then trying to tar and feather anyone who asks questions as a "Fake News" personality.
I don't know if there's any merit to the claims around Comet Ping Pong and the Podestas. It could just be some people are REALLY into pizza and when they talk about having small children in pools as entertainment those kids are there to sing Christmas carols or something. But the MSM's frantic efforts to drown it out by screaming about "fake news" is the Streisand Effect in action. They're giving anyone who wants to believe in a conspiracy even more reason to think there is some deep cover up that extends to the highest levels, and giving this thing legs it wouldn't have if John Podesta broke his tweet silence and just said, "This is all ridiculous and none of it is true," or the MSM did an investigative piece that conclusively explained away the things the Internet sleuths pursuing Pizzagate are hoisting up as evidence of a conspiracy.