if you replace witch with "unreliable source", a thing that does exist, it would be a more intellectually honest rephrasing
if you used it as a stand-in for "unreliable source", it would be a more intellectually honest rephrasing, as that is the actual objection here, and your attempt to reframe an unreliable source as "oh people just disfavor them" obviously disregards their unreliability, as well as ignores why the source is disfavored (because it is not reliable)
no, it didn't. most of the objection flowed from the lack of reliability of the source.
Criticizing the meat of the article is fine, or pointing out a particular ax the author might have to grind is valid too. I'm taking issue with the criticism that Bair Weiss is a bad woman therefore anything on her site is fake news.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32100018
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_...
does the site have a track record of reliable fact checking from their editorial team which reviews submitted content?
You can judge this article on its own merits, it's essentially a one off. It cites some sources, is written by subject matter experts, and is making claims about publicly available data. Do you really need a fact checker to gate keep here? I fail to see how the place of publication has any bearing here on the correctness or soundness of the arguments in the article.