It's not an insult, the other way around, it's naive to think that the general population acts intelligently with respect to information available to them on an ad-hoc basis.
All nations media outlets are absolutely protected and controlled industries for this very reason.
Information can be wrong, totally misrepresented, hyperbolic, it can reach large numbers of individuals wherein contrasting information cannot.
The objective of a 'foreign actor' is not to 'inform' citizens, it's the opposite - it's to use 'information' possibly 'truthy' to manipulate elections towards their desired outcomes.
If a foreign state wants to release 'important information' to 'inform' citizens, then it can be released with enough time for that to be vetted, digested and disseminated properly.
More than 1/2 of the vote is based on emotional decision making around specific subjects, were the media open to influence by other parties, it would be possible to control electoral outcomes when margins are +/- just a few points, as so many elections are these days.
If Putin is behind the 'Hunter Biden leaks' - that's fine, the truth is the truth, but not 10 days before an election it isn't.