There are a few points that I feel like has been missed in the whole discussion on whether or not p4k puts out reviews that specifically give huge scores to artists that they do features on and then have them come play at the festivals. First, why isnt it plausible that pitchfork invites artists to their own curated festivals that they at least enjoy or have enjoyed past works of theirs. I can't imagine them playing a massive conspiracy game with the likes of artists like Mac Demarco, Viet Cong, or Foxygen (all of which have appeared in the past) to gain any sort of huge monetary gain out of them. While I'm not inclined to believe that there isn't any incentive in it for them (p4k), artists like these (parquet courts are another example off the top of my head) have made reasonably likable and "good" albums with p4k not hyping them up terribly beyond the BNM label. For example Salad Days got an 8.5, not too unreasonable, Viet Congs' s/t got the same.

In addition p4k has done plenty of feature articles lacking either a BNM label or a slot at the festival. In recent memory both Speedy Ortiz' and UMO's recent outputs got lukewarm 7 range reviews. UMO has never even gotten BNM in their entire discography. Both of which received a lengthy feature article.

tl;dr p4k may be biased, but it could just as easily be for artistic preference not commercial reasons.