You will always hear controversial issues floating around without turning on "the news" and then if you care, you research it.

To form a stance, you take your opinions and beliefs about the topic and try to poke holes in them, analyze critically, go and find other perspectives.

If you can poke holes, then you figure out why and reform the stance until it's as airtight as you can make it, or you acknowledge where you're still short and work on it over time.

All this can be done without watching the news.