What do the media and the political elite have to gain by spreading false news of the world ending by the end of 2022?

Nothing changes. It's always the same level of doom and gloom as before, no more and no less. Every day we get news outlets pumping out completely exaggerated stories of events or completely fabricated stories, to gin up popularity ratings and other things. COVID is still a thing but now there’s some other disease called Monkey Pox which is causing a global scare. Fuel has reached astronomical prices making every basic necessity such as groceries more expensive due to transport costs. A baby formula shortage in the US, and unaffordable housing which means more homeless. And the list goes on and on and on. While I don’t think the world is ending, society right now is on an extremely precarious path and if something isn’t done to remedy this long list of existential problems it will eventually snowball into societal collapse.

What I fail to understand is, for what purpose are the media and the political elites trying to fulfill by propagating stories of the world ending by the end of this year?