I think that has more to do with TV and Movies than news...

You’ve really never heard of Sichuan, Hunan, or Canton (aka Gaungdong) ?

Depends on how you ask. Yes, I’m aware that those are Chinese provinces, as in, if you had provided me a list of Chinese cities and provinces I could have probably picked those out, or associated them back to China if the task was to match a province to its country. But I don’t think I could produce any of these if I was asked to give the name of a Chinese province.

I would have known those were regions of China (and cuisines). I would not have known with any certainty that they were actual provinces.