I like that I can follow people from my niche hobbies list+pros from the field I want to be active in. Averege users are so jaded and will complain for every network error they encounter. Don't get me wrong, people flock where the action is, they will learn how to do stuff on the fediverse just as they learned fb or other social media. I kinda dread those times, but I refuse to just gatekeep.
I don't know about news, I wish I could help you with that. I think there might be more news sources on Mastodon as the recent migration from centralized social medias occured, but I'm not sure. It can sound like an echo chamber, I relate to that, but feed curation is what drives your main page.