But I pay attention and weigh and analyze and review and question
and you do all that based on facts.
you can analyze, review and question facts and then form an opinion, but first step is to be able to trust the facts you read and that is where the rating of the source may be useful (if you are not already familiar with said source).
unless “using your own brain” is euphemism for discarding facts which doesn’t fit your opinion, then you indeed don’t need to know anything about trustworthiness of the source 😂