It depends on how you look at that. The most graphic of crime and war photos may not be shared in the news. But news media is anything free of accounts of maythem, disasters, murders, wars, which are depicted with disturbing detail. The news is drenched with violent, traumatic, disturbing events. One study showed that over 80% of newstories in US on a issue were negative. The BBC coverage was only around 50% negative on the same subject. One could say they are just objectively depicting how the world is. But that's not remotely true. They ignore countless things that are more positive and important to understand current events. It presents, at best, a limited and distorted view of the world.
There is the rule that, "If dog bites man it's not news. But if man bites dog, that's news." This means the stories that are prioritized are ones that are both disturbing and odd. If a man kills his stepmother and grinds her body up in the disposal, news editors will say, "Perfect, that's our lead feature!" The story will disturb consumers, but is it useful to them to know about such a rare and peculiar event? Not really, it just upsets them to no purpose.
The problem is that for most media outlets, their goal is not to give consumers an objective understanding of the world. They have convinced themselves that sensationalism pays and brings in the most revenue. From their viewpoint, they are mostly in the business of entertainment, not education. There are indications that it is not true that sensationalism is good for business. Polls show that young people are abandoning traditional news media in droves. A major reason, they say, is because it is so negative and depressing.
As an example, my area of Oregon has experienced major forest fires that threatened populated areas in recent years. There were important things for citizens to know about fires such as whether it was approaching their area. But the TV news had features on fires six times a day, usually covering the same traumatic aspects over and over, like a little crying because her pony had burned up. This was overkill, there was no functional reason for people to be oversaturated with all that stuff. But the minute the fires ended, there was not one mention of them in the news. But there should have been because the fire threat was going to recur. There needed to be discussions all year about how to prevent fires in the future. But they won't do those stories because it isn't sensational enough. I finally saw one story on Public Television where they discussed strategies to address the root cause of fires, like excess fuels in the forests. That was one out of thousands of sensational reports.
People have a finite capacity to absorb traumatic stories. The media maxs that out largely on pointless subjects so that when there is something like Ukraine where they should know about it and feel empathy and try to help by donating to relief drives or something, they have nothing left. When people are overloaded, they become numb, and eventually, instead of feeling empathy, they are pissed to hear about the misery of others. When people are maxed out, even showing the most graphic war photos will not make them more empathetic or interested. It may do the opposite. You can blame the public for being apathetic and heartless, but they have been engineered to be that way by the media. In general, it can be stressful to have someone tell of their dire problems but have no way to help. It is the same with the news. If we show the public horrific images of Ukraine, there also ought information on how they can help, how they can actively support solutions and not just be a passive dumping site for sensational trauma.
