Regarding the original sentiment though, uninformed vs misinformed...

Isn't this basically just good old signal processing? We either don't have enough signal, or we're saturated with noise. Economic feedback loops keep the news noise at a saturated level; we don't seem to be able to collectively agree or incentivize having a spot of information spectrum that has a decent discernible signal.

The "free" press is no more free than it was 300 years ago. Then it was owned by despotic interests. Today, it is owned by need to make money.