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Sorry, no mea culpa. Let me elaborate. Van Zandt claims to value IFCN fact-checkers in his ratings, then he uses that laundered credibility to gatekeep minority and politically inconvenient voices. Here's a recent example brought to my attention.
It should be noted that despite no non-partisan fact checkers are listed on MBFC's site as raising concerns about the The Cradle's credibility, Van Zandt has arbitrarily placed it in the "Factual Reporting: Mixed" and "Credibility: Medium" categories. The concerns he posits about The Cradle's 'lack of transparency, poor sourcing," and one-sidedness clearly apply to the weird right-wing guy who makes these opaque decisions about journalistic value.
If IFCN fact-checkers have issues with sources he'd like to denigrate, he's happy to list them even if they've since been resolved. But they don't make up the central criteria for his 'methodology' as he'd like you to believe. Meanwhile he's free to make unreferenced claims about the credibility of others that uncareful readers take completely at face value.
All the concerns I have about The Cradle's credibility have been developed in spite of MBFC, which is the opposite of what you want if your goal is accountability and media literacy. And thanks to their reliance on this charlatan, LW!news have recently punted what I think is a valuable report.
If you think being an unrepentant liar is good for your cred, fill your boots, I guess.
'I don't understand how it works so it's stupid!'
This is from the report:
Who could've seen that rating coming?
Methodical is the opposite of arbitrary. The reason it seems arbitrary to you is that you don't understand it. As a bare minimum to be critical of MBFC you should understand how it works, understand their methodology, and probably have read their Wikipedia page. Bonus points for seeing what high quality research says about them (spoiler alert: it says you're wrong). You're demanding that people take very seriously your misinterpretations and assumptions about something you don't understand. How is that a reasonable request?