I think we're getting into matters of definition. Do I count on HN to stay aware of current events? No; it would be a very incomplete picture. Much of HN has nothing to do with current events.
Hacker News seems to me a news aggregator, just with a certain limited scope.
It's not scope mismatch, it's that HN doesn't present a (nearly, roughly) complete picture of current events in any scope (other than the scope of itself, of course).
is a famous quote attributed to him afaik (maybe i mangled it a bit).