"buried in lies and fearmongering by the media and policitians" -- agreed
The thing is, the media's in the business of gathering eyeballs and nothing gets people gawking like rumors of disaster.
It's a bit of a catch-22. Stright-ahead, objective journalism is folk music, but sensationalism is rock-n-roll. You tell me, which one commands a higher gate price? Maybe we, as consumers, need to look at how we react to fearmongering.