The first is about the statistical notion of average. If knowledge about X country's affairs goes from 1 to 10, the average score of journalists covering it will be quite higher than the average score of the general population (who usually can't even pinpoint the country on a map).

So that journalists writing about X country will have better knowledge on those matters than the average person's knowledge is true.

The second is about whether a journalist writing about country X is expected to know better than any ordinary person (who isn't a journalist). This is not necessary true.

There are laymen that have vast more/better knowledge of country X (history/global affairs enthusiasts, expats that lived and worked there, and especially immigrants from X) than many such journalists.

In other worlds, journalists are not like scholarly experts on a subject, where their knowledge by definition trumps both the average person's knowledge (an aggregate figure), and aany layman.

They're more like knowledgable in those matters, but whose knowledge can easily be trumped by many better informed laymen, especially laymen with ties to the country that understand the situation on the ground and the background much better.

journalists are knowledgeable -> average person says yes

ordinary people are knowledgeable -> average person says not necessarily