I think it would.
I think overexposure to (perceived) threats can have a detrimental effect on the (collective) perception of life. Especially when the viewer is presented with information they can't do anything about. This can create feelings of helplessness, depression, anxiety and/or agression. The (local) news should be about human interest in the most functional sense of the word: "how are things holding up for us and what are the best (most clear) examples of this? Can we perhaps even be so bold as to extrapolate the future from these events or should we leave this to the experts?". Not: "well, our current worldview dictates that drugs are bad and crimes are committed by this particular group so for your peace of mind here are some more examples that support this paradigm."
I don't think the news should be used to influence politics. (Good) politicians can see the gap in the road from a mile away, steer clear of it, and make sure it's fixed afterwards - that's what journalists should report. Not the other way around.
The other side of the coin is that the news should offer (more) follow-up stories. It's actually pretty unnatural to know so much about so many people from so many different countries: every day our attention is grabbed with this imposed sense of urgency by different stories, and most of the time we aren't informed (in my country anyway) how they end.
So why bring it up? Am I supposed to fly over to Nepal and check whether help instances are truly doing their job well? No wait, because chemtrails, migration, unemployment, ageing and low birth rates.
It (spitefully) only makes me more aware of my own situation, and I can imagine the same for people from a low(er) socio-economic background (which is a pretty relative/meaningless term if you ask me).