Remember When Natalie Dabbled in Fake News on "The Facts of Life"

I've been watching reruns of "The Facts of Life" again recently and came across this gem from the sitcom's fourth season. Titled "The Source," it features Natalie and her desire to write an impactful article for the school newspaper. She's tired of nobody taking her writing seriously, so she wants to write about abortion.

The problem is that she can't get any leads on Eastland girls who've had abortions, so the article is dead on arrival. That is until Tootie begins talking about her old imaginary friend named Louise. That story inspires Natalie to create a composite make-believe student:

"I'll combine all the cases I've read about. 40 hours of research will create the perfect Louise!"

Tootie is the only person who knows the truth about Louise. The rest of the student body is super excited about her story. There were even rumblings that she should enter the article in some sort of school newspaper award contest because of the quality of her writing.


All is well in Natalie's world until Mr. Parker, Eastland's headmaster, tells her that she needs to come forward with Louise's true identity -- or else face suspension from school!


Unwilling to risk public ridicule and confess that there is no Louise, Natalie begins packing. That's when we meet up with Annie. She's an Eastland student who's never appeared before and who will never appear again. Like everyone else, she loves Natalie's article. But she can't figure out how Natalie knew about her secret life. It turns out that Annie had an abortion and just assumed that Natalie was writing about it. Annie then begs Natalie to keep her secret.


So now Natalie turns to Mrs. Garrett for advise. On the one hand, she can confess about making up "Louise" for her article. On the other hand, she now has an actual "Louise" -- who actually believes that she is Natalie's "Louise"(!!). Natalie could narc on Annie and nobody (but Tootie) would be the wiser. Ultimately, Natalie does the right thing and confesses to Mr. Parker that there is no Louise. He's happy that he has a story to tell the hordes of parents that have descended on Eastland, and Annie's secret is safe.

Everything is about "fake news" these days with today's media -- whether or not the news is fake or not isn't always the truth. But it sometimes is. It's interesting to see an early example of a news writer creating fiction in order to draw attention to a subject -- and why she felt pressured to go down that road.