I would be very interested in how you define them as having a "long reputation of good research", given that they don't do research so much as pointing to various links without checking their quality and make sure to specify may/could/potentially/... All over their long form articles specifically to not be making any claim since they don't research them enough.
I'm not blaming them at all for it by the way, they're a comedic publication not investigative, I'm just weirded out by your perception of them when they themselves go out of their way to not purport themselves as any kind of authoritative source.
Literally just look at their homepage - it's entirely bottom-of-the barrel top 10 lists about celebrities.
I miss old Cracked.com when they had a consistent set of good writers but even in the good ol' days they were making comedy articles and not serious journalism.
https://www.cracked.com/article_34310_connecticut-put-a-prob...