[PawgerZ]

> They later in the paragraph use the word manipulation to make this appear as some conspiracy I should care about

What phrasing do you think they should have used instead? In my mind, this is very clear manipiulation. Obviously, it's not the most important thing in the world, and many people who are serious about movies have disregarded rotten tomatoes for a while now.

I do think their writing was sloppy, though. Ex:

> Vulture article: In another break from standard practice, several critics say, Bunker 15 pays them $50 or more for each review.

> Screengeek summary: The PR firm, named Bunker 15, is said to pay as much as $50.00 for a single Rotten Tomatoes review.

So, I agree its low quality journalism, but not because they had a factual hook in the first paragraph.