Blacklisted how? 20 years ago consumer reports was considered a trusted source and they purchased everything they reviewed. How are you going to blacklist someone from going to the store and buying your product?
The vast majority of publications fund “reviews” in different ways.
Some publications you can pay to have your product “featured” in.
In some others, companies give a reviewer who has a reputation for favorable reviews free products. The unspoken expectation is that the reviews will drive sales and that the free product (and free content) train keeps going.
And yet others have serious conflicts of interest with their supporting advertisers.
(Youtube/Blog) Reviewers get blacklisted by companies by not providing a positive review about a product they were given. As they rely on scooping type style reviews, this means they not only don't get a free product to review, but they can't review it until after it's for sale instead of being able to 'preview' it for people and get more clicks that way.
The "gotta have everything day one (or earlier!) to be cool!" is the most successful piece of meta-marketing imaginable.
They’re still quite strong.
They do use affiliate links, so they have incentive to want you to buy _something_, but no incentive to give any particular brand or model a biased review.
When it's seller specific affiliate programs? It's all just spam basically.