The proper metric is not "authentic" but "useful". If a channel's usefulness is outweighed by it's cooption, then it deserves to be ignored.

Take for example some of the Apple related blogs & ecosystem. I don't doubt for one second that Apple monitors them and may even feed them leaks.

Why would a subreddit be somehow immune from this corruptive pressure? Better to know the system is corruptible rather than look at reddit as somehow above the fray.