Storytelling the Tool for Truth

I am currently working on an English assignment, roughly about the manipulation of truth in documentaries to prove the director's point.  I was searching through sites for a quote that I could use to kickstart my feature article, and I came across this.  It doesn't support my argument, but it touched me too much to leave it behind.   

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story. —Anthony de Mello, from One Minute Wisdom

I whole heartedly agree with this statement.  I have experienced over and over the truth of this statement.  Books, stories, are the quickest way for people with a message, a truth, to share it with us.  It is also a way that that person can share that truth without persecution, because he or she wraps their truth in an allegory that requires personal interpretation.

A great example is made in the Australian TV series, Seachange.  The locals host a town play, a key character of which is a greedy, villanous mayor, which the audience recognises as satirical representation of the town's actual mayor, Bob Jelly.  While no one else realises this connection, Bob notices the allegory, and confront the playwright, threatening to sue.  The playwright responds smugly with, "you want to tell everyone that the greedy, evil villain of the play is based on you?"  And of course, he couldn't do a thing about that. 

What power writers have to change and influence our opinions and open our minds.  Storytelling is a tool for truth.