I know the ideal is that we can decide for ourselves, but the reality is that in most things in life, we lack the expertise.

I'm not a plumber, doctor, police officer, etc. Sometimes they are obviously right or wrong. Otherwise, I can try to second-guess them based on some limited or amateur knowledge here and there, but I know that when laypeople try that in regard to my profession, it very rarely helps them and can be a recipe for disaster. They don't even know what questions to ask.

In the end, IMHO we have to decide which experts to trust - this plumber or that one; this subterranean urban transport engineer or the other one. Thanks to the open societies in modern democracies, plus modern communication, we have a plethora of experts and voices to choose from, but it ain't perfect.

The layman is only called to be knowledgeable enough to identify whether their elected politicians are mismanaging projects after hearing expert testimony.

Which is the exact same way politicians can know whether projects are not mismanaged or over-budgeted by the construction companies, etc.

that's why good and fair journalism is so important. It should connect the dots and try to explain to the layman what's going on, while ideally being honest about the opinions of the paper and not having an explicit agenda (i am not really sure if i used that word right, for me it feels kinda extreme).