What do people want the media to report? The original reports were literally that some BP stations had closed as they had no deliveries. It was entirely being reported on as a part of the HGV story. It was only then when people started worrying that they began reporting on that.
The alternative is that they ignore the story, or only report that there is enough fuel around, and then social media will be all over them for not mentioning the closures, shortages, queues or rationing.
These stories create themselves, the media reporting on it is irrelevant really, social media alone will cause the same issues. As soon as people hear that something is in short supply they want to be in the queue so they don't miss out, even if they acknowledge that doing so is silly. Just look at the results of black Friday when the supermarkets got fully on board with that - no media involvement there but people were literally fighting over stuff they didn't need.
Just to add - in this example, the number of people I've heard complaining about the media making a mountain out of a molehill, but admitting they've popped to the local petrol station to fill up just-in-case is astounding. The problem isn't the media, it's people like that who normally refuel at 20% but are doing it at 75% because it might affect them next week.