You must be reading someone else's mind.
What I really think -
Most US car magazines never print truly negative reviews. Advertising revenue is all important and if you trash cars that need to be trashed you'll lose revenue, plus you won't get all expenses paid invitations to the various manufacturer's cool events. Even when cars are truly rotten, they always find a few good things to say. In comparison tests where they have to have a winner, the company that buys the most ads is more likely to win. The only exception is that German cars usually win because that is what the readers expect.
Consumers Report is the one US exception to this behavior. I rarely agree with their opinions. And in the end, despite all their claims to unbiased evaluations, that is all that their ratings reflect. For at least the last 20 years they have largely favored Japanese cars. I am sure they have their reasons. However, my own personal experiences with numerous Japanese cars is so far off of theirs that I don't pay much attention to their opinions any more. They have shown such favoritism to Toyotas (for whatever reason) that I think it is ironic that, because of a few less than glowing reviews, you said to dump the magazine.
Back when I was younger I used to subscribe to a couple of British car magazines. They were very much different that US magazines. Instead of always saying nice thing about everybody's cars, they had no problem at all in trashing certain cars. In general, the further the manufacturer's headquarters was from London, the worse they rated the car. Even while British Leyland was sinking under the waves, they tended to praise the BL products. To them the Rover 3500 was a winner. I still enjoyed the reviews because I am a natural cynic and appreciate criticism instead of faint praise. I had no trouble separating out chauvinism from facts.
Ed