if that's your conclusion, then I see you have done only the surface level amount of reading and research on this subject.
dig deeper. it may take some time, but if you look across even just a 1 year period, you start to see trends and subjects that come up time and time again.
if your filter will allow you to see the spectrum of what is reported about your state, you may see sides that you didn't see, before. maybe not all of them are pleasant, so I 'get' that it can be a difficult read.
I will address this comment of yours, specifically:
Just a bunch of unrelated headlines, some of them rather childish.
yes, its quite true; there is a high noise content on a site like that. I think most of the user base is, well, very very young and that becomes apparent after you start to read and get a feel for how the site works.
that said, there are also some pretty smart people from all the regions and those are the gems. those are the insightful and very telling comments that I'm talking about. it takes a bit of work and reading to sort it out, but anyone can, if they spend a little time getting to know the styles and what makes for trolls, noise, flames or sincere opinion.
its all there. and that's part of what makes it useful. its YOU who do the filtering, when you read. the filter is not on the 'send' side, so you get the full raw feed, pretty much.