That's the problem, yes. I still ignore the media, others don't. Both approaches are fine. The thing is, the media doesn't have any other sources, do they? But the have to produce content, so they do. Not very helpfull in the quality department if you ask me.

I would say that broadly speaking, media is better than the institutional outlets for providing information.

You have to sift through the garbage, but the content exits. to use the topics I listed above as an examples, I can find more details on local closures and outbreaks in the local news the local department of public health. Similarly, I have found coverage and links to medical journal publications embedded in articles. Lastly, the institutions are avoiding disclosure of next steps or plans like the plague ( no pun intended). Either they have no plan for the days to come, or they are intentionally withholding information. On the other hand, there are a number of media outlets, mostly non-traditional, that are providing projections based on other counties.

the point I was making, really, is that media sites exist to make a profit, not to inform, while government-funded sites purely exist to inform.

There's a lot of money to be made from scaring people.

That is true and I agree. I would just point out that the unfortunate reality we live in is that the government sites are doing a terrible job of informing.