A properly functioning democracy requires voters to be well informed about political issues. Not knowing what's going on means you can't make an informed choice if or when you vote. Often, you have the choice of two or more equally unsatisfactory (or equally good) candidates so change doesn't happen and voting might not matter, but sometimes countries change very rapidly for the worse, like Germany did in 1933, so it isn't always possible to stay insulated from events.

Of course, many news sources are unreliable, or biased, and most voters are poorly informed or easily manipulated, and many important issues are so complex that learning about them would take up most of people's spare time, but if people make more of an effort to stay informed, and learn to recognize bias and disinformation, and vote accordingly, things might become better than they would otherwise be.