Same reason we have religion in 2021 - People suffer in some way or the other - They crave/need an escape from that reality - A whole bunch of jobless people find employment catering to that need to escape giving them stories they want to hear. Large parts of the Media have been programmed to chase this crowd because the Like/View/Click data makes it easy to targets these people.
And don't have any doubt there are people with serious delusions and mental health issues in journalism, military etc who find each other and reinforce beliefs.
A networked world and its network effects makes escape easy. Some people even suggest its not a bad thing cause society isn't sophisticated enough to provide anything better than escape at scale - https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712
And don't have any doubt there are people with serious delusions and mental health issues in journalism, military etc who find each other and reinforce beliefs.
A networked world and its network effects makes escape easy. Some people even suggest its not a bad thing cause society isn't sophisticated enough to provide anything better than escape at scale - https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712