The problem is not what you believe, but why you believe it. If a world where "narrative" is the highest form of "truth," we are doomed. It was about 25 years ago that one writer famously declare "history is dead," a sentiment reached by realizing that every "report" is reported from the perspective of the reporter. That perspective causes the reporter to make series of decisions that shape the story.
The first decision made is if he/she feels the "story" is worth reporting. In other words, that which is to him/her significant is reported and that which is not, isn't. Minimizing the event by ignoring it is one of the chief tactics of good activist journalism.
The second decision made by a reporter is actually made long before the investigation is done. A reporter finds something interesting...some piece of "gossip" or even a "fact" and wonders about it. He/she goes to his/her editor and suggests a "story" be done. The first question out of the editors mouth is, "What's the angle you'll take?" He/she asks that because he/she is in the business of pulling in viewers/readers. You don't get those by producing stories that say, "well nothing really happened here even though at first glance we thought it might have." In other words, whatever angle the reporter wants to take he/she knows it must include a good deal of "sensation" -- human drama -- or it won't be published/written. So whatever the story actually is, it's always presented as a human drama with real suffering or, at least once in a while, real heroics. Praise and blame is the goal because almost all stories have to have heroes to praise and villains to blame.
A third decision is made once the reporter has gathered the "facts." That the reporter may sense some "facts" are "insignificant" to the story. Another reporter, viewing the same facts may feel they are integral to the story. Both see/hear the same things but due to the framework of their personal perspective (usually influenced by their politics) they "foreground" some facts and "marginalize" others. Out of that which is "important" they build their story. If they try to take in all perspectives and write a more or less "neutral" perspective the tendency is to praise and blame all parties equally. This is a really bad idea since ambiguity does not make the reader/viewer feel much but confusion. Confusion is not morality and leaves the reader wondering what they should feel about the heroes and villains in the story.
Finally, in addition to the decision that the event is significant and that there's a story in it, the reporter then has to write the story from the perspective pitched to the editor. It does no good to pitch that the local baseball team is having an off season and you pitch a human interest story on how that is affecting the players, if you then come back and write a story lauding their hitting. The editor would laugh and ask about what you actually pitched in the first place. Unless, of course, their hitting is great because they switched to a questionable type of bat and the other teams are mad as hornets. In other words, once you pitch a story you are obligated to either write the story with all the proper villains and heroes or one with even more villainous villains and heroic heroes. A story is a moral tale, not a neutral account. That's the lesson learned in journalism over the last fifty years. And if it is so then reporters are encouraged to participate in "activist journalism" -- targeting players as heroes or villains -- exactly because, since there is no reality that can be known, any reality that serves the purpose is perfectly fine so long as you get it in print.
In the end, since our students are taught to view every "event" as a story told from some personal/political perspective rather than as an "honest report" we make it so every listener can just discount what he/she doesn't like in the story because it's "just a story" told out of political motivations (read propaganda). I was once in a debate over affirmative action. In that debate I cited, complete with references, a double blind study that showed my opponents position just plain wrong. Her response was, "that's just propaganda." I was shocked but recovered myself enough to ask why she thought that. "Because it flies in the face of what I know to be true," she said with a straight face.
In the end we don't/can't discuss politics or anything of significance not because methods of discussion that avoid dramatic confrontations aren't available, but because we no longer believe truth can be known. If history is dead then even what I ate for breakfast is up for debate. All you have left at that point is the desire for the power to declare to everyone -- and make them live it -- that your truth is true and theirs' not so much. In an world where truth is sand we all fall down.
AJ