“Is this level of stupid a naturally occurring phenomenon?”
If you look back I suspect there were large numbers of people from different walks of life, some not college educated, who made their way into the news business. They were a sample of society as a whole and that World War II generation was largely conservative by today’s standards. A ‘60’s Democrat would be a hard left Republican today.
Then colleges began offering courses in being a news reporter. Colleges were liberal and attracted liberal people. Probably, only liberals graduated and, only graduates got hired. There were, thus, several filters put in place that began turning the media leftwards. As time went on the older generation retired and the newer, filtered, generation took over. As a result, the media no longer reflects the population in general. Thus, everything they say looks some variety of crazy.
And the same holds true for public school teachers.