The first thought that came to my mind was the Google Gemini debacle, as a useful analogy. How did Google release it in the state it was in? How did they not notice the problems? How did leadership think it was a good idea? I think you'd find a lot of similar answers in both cases.
I agree with most of the criticisms regarding NPR's decline, but totally disagree with the idea that it's at all comparable to the Gemini situation. NPR is deliberately pushing an editorial agenda, not a product that they immediately took offline because it was performing poorly.
Every diffusion image model produces all kinds of arbitrarily bizarre behavior, this particular permutation just happened to catch fire in the media because it's culture war tinder. The idea that Google leaders thought it was "a good idea" to generate black Nazis and native American founding fathers is a caricature.