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You take the good, you take the bad,

you take them both and there you have

The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

There's a time you got to go and show

You're growin' now you know about

The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

When the world never seems

to be livin up to your dreams

And suddenly you're finding out

the Facts of Life are all about you, you.

It takes a lot to get 'em right

When you're learning the Facts of Life. (learning the Facts of Life)

Learning the Facts of Life (learning the Facts of Life)

Learning the Facts of Life.

Anyone else watch “The Facts of Life” in the middle of the night growing up? Probably not. It came on after “Happy Days” on Nick at Nite. But if you take this song out of the context of the show, it related the journalism. (The show was filmed in the 1980’s an the plot was based off of a group of girls at a boarding school.)

Getting the facts right in journalism is huge, because unless you have the facts you can’t be loyal to your audience. You would not have the capability. Even if the facts are not what you would want them to be, “you take the good, you take the bad” and you write it. Because you don’t write for yourself, your editor, or your advertisers good journalists write for the people.

I feel like a lot of journalists like to muddy the waters because they think that being loyal to the “people” is the same as being loyal to “their people.” For example, if a journalist writes for a newspaper that is predominantly read by Left Wing citizens, then the journalist might believe it to be okay to share more points towards the left and neglect the right. But that isn’t what it means to be loyal to the people. But it sells. And because business is part of the journalism world, things are going to give and take no matter what.

I really loved the whole separate elevator conversation we had. One of the journalists and one for the advertisers. Though this is quite drastic, this was an owner really wanting to take a stand and to do everything possibly (even silly some might say) to keep traditional values.

As I was grading blogs today, a lot of people kept commenting on how the newspaper is boring or too old and needs to get with the times. But no matter what people use the newspaper for, it still needs to be rooted in the truth and in loyalty to the people. ALL of the people.