I used to look at the car reviews at the library. No matter what model or price range they always concluded a Honda Civic was the better choice.
When I knew something about the products they were reviewing I saw they were going for the vanilla safe bet. Like the old saying that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, they like solid and boring.
I liked Motorcycle Consumer News. They had no advertisements and if something sucked they pulled no punches. They suddenly shut down iirc, after 25 years. No warning, just a notice that this was the final issue. I'm not sure they even told the writers beforehand.
The difference is everybody rode. I never got the impression the CR people actually used the products they reviewed.