You’ll need to be specific about which news community. Because if it’s lemmy.ml, yeah, we don’t go there for a reason.
But even if it’s any other, yes, Lemmy is designed to allow each instance admin to run it as they see fit. If you don’t like it, you will have to go to another or create your own.
Why does DC need to be separate anyway? Does any other country do it like that?
Edit: yes, a few, but not really any I would look to as role models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_district