During some of the slower weeks of the year I find myself looking up and down Playback’s news lineup for something – anything – compelling to put on the front page, and wondering whether I’ll finally have to resort to running a picture of myself in a Speedo after a cold dip just to fill the space.

Fortunately, there are other options.

Priding ourselves as intrepid journalists, we sometimes opt to make up our own news. One trick is to corner unsuspecting public figures and ask them to comment on issues that would be of interest to our readers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Not too long ago reporter Sean Davidson turned the trick by getting CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen to comment on whether the regulator was considering reopening its controversial 1999 Television Policy in light of the outcry over the decline in Canadian drama. The answer was ‘No’ and voila, we had an item to anchor the front page under the headline ‘TV policy review ‘not realistic’ says Dalfen.’

Other weeks, there’s simply nothing happening and we have to settle for secondary stories and gratuitous sex-related items that only tangentially touch the production and broadcast industries. It’s just the nature of the business.

This is not one of those issues.

This issue I had the rare joy of having to decide between eight stories, any of which could have made a case for front-page coverage. Since we last went to press, CanWest Global founder Izzy Asper announced that he was retiring; CHUM/Citytv guru Moses Znaimer walked out of his Toronto HQ to go on ‘sabbatical’; the Prix Jutra nominees were announced; rumors emerged that the US$100-million-plus film version of Superman might be landing in Toronto; and NATPE wrapped with a better-than-expected showing among the Canadian contingent.

What ultimately made the front is a story on plans to take Prairie-based Minds Eye Entertainment into the Ontario market and eventually launch an IPO; an interview with Robert Lantos and Jeff Sackman about their new partnership at Thinkfilm; and a breakdown of 2002 production volumes in Canada.

We are often accused of being too production-oriented in our coverage and the front page of this issue of Playback will not help dissuade that opinion.

The reason we choose these stories is because they are all exclusive to us, which we like, being a bi-weekly competing with a number of dailies that cover the business of production and broadcast as well. The other reason is that even as you read this, Playback is being distributed at the CFTPA Prime Time conference in Ottawa. These stories should be of importance to delegates and it’s always nice to create some buzz without resorting to undressing yourself.

That said, we continue to endeavor to improve coverage of other areas, including the broadcast and media sector. A new monthly feature called Stock Watch was developed with this in mind. Launched in the last issue, the feature analyzes the performances and market forces playing on various publicly traded media companies.

None of this is really important, but I thought some of our readers might like to know how and why we make the decisions that we do.

If you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to write or call.