You are caught in the web of your own cleverness.
“Appealing to authority” is what we do as soon as “a spot shows up on our lung x-ray.”
Generally speaking, genuine authorities know more than other people which is why you yourself will consult one immediately there’s a life-threatening disease in your family.
Similarly, opinion articles often contain huge amounts of factual truth, especially when they’re published by mainstream press luminaries like the Washington Post, the New York Times, Atlantic Magazine, Harpers, etc.
America’s epistemological breakdown Is mostly attributable to “alternative facts,” whole cloth lies and fake news whose epicenter is the White House and the outhouse known as The Republican Noise Machine.
The core of America’s crisis was neatly described by Isaac Asimov.
To learn more, google: “Asimov, knowledge, opinion.”