Hindsight Week Reprint: Don't Ask Me About My Tv Series, Kay.

YET ANOTHER PIECE where we see my growing unease with the audience-approach I wrote about in depth with the LOST finale.

ALAN SEPINWALL has a very interesting interview with Battlestar Galactica's Ronald Moore over at his digs. Moore is one of the writers that noobs really should be tracking, just because in all his podcasts and interviews, he's just so refreshingly open about the process. That kind of openness can sometimes work to a writer's detriment, especially in the case where they use it in the endless "there's a plan," "no, they're making it up as they go along," argument.

The problem with that argument is that the answer is: they're doing both of those things. But that nuance, and the reasoning behind that nuance, is not something that's ever going to translate to the mostly-wisdom free province of the internet message board.

Moore is the guy who admits mistakes in the writing while watching the show for a podcast. He's posted long recordings of discussions from the Writers' Room, for heaven's sake. And in Sepinwall's interview, here's the key exchange about the whole, "planned out" aspect of series writing:

In terms of "Galactica," how long have you known how you were going to end it?


In general terms, over the last year and a half, somewhere in the middle of season three I started asking, 'What's the shape of the ending? What's going to happen at the end of the show and what's going to be the case when they meet up with whoever they meet up with?' As we got into season three, I started thinking of it more seriously, and last summer, almost a year ago, we had a writer's summit up in Lake Tahoe and said, "It's going to end here." But a lot of the pieces didn't fall into place until I was sitting at the computer writing the teleplay that I realized exactly how the cards were going to fall for different characters.


One of the things I find interesting is, on "Lost," Cuse and Lindelof have always claimed they have a master plan and know where it's all going, and fandom has been skeptical at times and said, "Yeah, right." Whereas you've been pretty candid about the fact that you'll throw stuff out there and figure it out later, and yet people assume there's some cohesive plan to "Galactica." How do you pull that off to make it seem like there's a plan?


To me, that's the job. The job is to figure a way along in a story but make it all feel like it's seamless, to make it all make sense. Hopefully, if I've done my job right, when all is said and done and the story's been put to bed and you've got the entire set of DVDs before you and you watch them, that it feels like a cohesive narrative -- that stuff we just threw up and decided to take a flier on without ultimately knowing where it would pay off, when you look at in hindsight, that it all tracks. You're painting this large painting on this big canvas, and you may not know what it's going to look like at the end, but when you're done, you want it to feel like it's a cohesive vision and makes perfect sense.


So, for instance, when you decided who four of the Final Five would be, how much thought did you have to put into it before revealing it in "Crossroads," and how much was, "Oh, we'll say this and figure it out over the hiatus"?


The impulse to do it was literally an impulse. We were in the writers room on the finale of that season, always knew we would end season 3 on trial of Baltar and his acquittal, the writers had worked out a story and a plot, they were pitching it to me in the room. And I had a nagging sense that it wasn't big enough, on the level of jumping ahead a year or shooting Adama. And I literally made it up in the room, I said, "What if four of our characters walk from different parts of the ship, end up in a room and say, 'Oh my God, we're Cylons'? And we leave one for next season." And everyone said "Oh my God," and they were scared, and because they were scared, I knew I was right. And then we sat and spent a couple of hours talking about who those four would be. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to lock in who made the most sense and who would make the most story going forward.

To an element of the fanboy crowd, that is going to always be a maddening answer, because the only way to grok it is to think of it fully formed and ready to go. Which is weird, of course, since nobody bats an eye at artists' sketches or tests or studies for major paintings, or thinks that a demo of this song or that with different lyrics spoils the cohesiveness of the work. But there it is. You'll always be fighting the don'tgettits out there, who think that the ability to say, "this sucks" is the highest form of intellectual jousting.

But if you're trying to find your voice and your way, the combination of risk and doubt that suffuses every interview with Moore shows you he's the real deal. I learn something from every podcast he's done, and that's why, ultimately, despite off episodes and the occasional flaw, Battlestar Galactica is the show teaches me more about what I do than anything I currently watch.

Oh yeah, and the title of this post, I'm just being silly. I thought it was funny that he had the big writing summit for BSG up at Lake Tahoe. You know who else hung out at Tahoe...

EDIT: Hilarious. I go and write this post, and look what the VERY FIRST COMMENT over at Sepinwall's place is:

As much as I love this show, it really is frustrating to hear how RM just decides on a whim such major plot points as "let's make 4 main characters find out they are cylons". It really does call into question some of the earlier narrative and choices made by the writers and actors.

I appreciate Moore's honesty, but honest to Pete, maybe David Chase's "the work speaks for itself and I'm not explaining it" F-you is the right approach. Something to ponder...

To comment, please click through to the original post here.

Hindsight Week Reprint: I Was LOST But Now I'm Found

I GUESS THIS post doesn't exactly "add" anything to the "did they know the ending or didn't they?" debate.  If you didn't like the LOST ending, I mean. But I'm satisfied, anyway.

AT THE RISK of setting major bad precedent, in the comments section of the previous post on the NYTimes article on J.J. Abrams, a commenter named Chris had this to say:

I call bull. They have changed Lost so many times it is now a confusing mess, too many questions left unanswered and to say they always knew what they were going to do, is crap.

I answered him and tried to contextualize a bit what the article was going for -- but Chris was not appeased.

Saying "knowing the goal posts but being able to move them" is a copout. They have zigged too many times for me to believe them anymore. One example, 'Ben' was supposed to be a 3 eps role. Now he has spent two seasons as the main bad guy? I agree the flashforwards were a brilliant idea, but I know for a fact that was not planned at the beginning, therefore changing many storylines. I think I'm pissed off because I loved Lost so much I feel cheated.

I found Chris' comment interesting on a few levels -- and started answering, and at some point the comment became so long that I thought, "hey, free post!" So don't feel singled out here, Chris. Thanks for sparking.

Chris, you have me at a disadvantage here because I don't really know anything about you.

But based on your take on this I'm going to make the bold prediction that you're not a working television writer.

This blog, and just about everything in it, is written from that perspective.

So while I understand the fan point of view that might think that being able to "move the goalposts" is a cop out, the primary audience I'm talking to understands that it's actually an on-the-job necessity. The only way around it would be to know at the outset that you were guaranteed 48, or 88, or 102 episodes and out. And the business just doesn't work that way.

And your point about Ben, in fact, is the thing that delineates most clearly the wide gulf between the way a writer needs to approach a show, and the way a viewer approaches a show.

See, to a writer working on LOST, seeing those first dailies come back on Ben had to have been the most satisfying, electrifying experience imaginable. Because so often it goes the other way. You cast someone for a key role, and they don't really deliver -- a combo of they messed up and you messed up, or maybe it was just one of those things beyond everyone's control. Anyway, when that happens, often you have to junk the whole plot. Which is why threads get dropped and friends disappear on shows.

But sometimes, a great actor steps up and surprises you.

On The West Wing, Janel Moloney had such chemistry with Bradley Whitford, that what was supposed to be a minor role was bumped up - and an actress that was supposed to be a major part of the show got shuffled out.

And when they saw those dailies come back on Ben, I bet they whooped -- and chattered their way back to the story room full of high-wire excitement. "Oh My God," they said. "How do we write more for this guy?" "What if, what if..."

See, Drama TV is a quirkly little art form. The only thing I can think to compare it to is writing a story in serial form for print, which doesn't happen very much anymore. That's how Charles Dickens wrote most of his books, which is why his stories have such well-drawn and memorable minor characters.

Before I seriously turned to writing, while I was still in high school, in fact, Rolling Stone Magazine serialized an early Draft of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of The Vanities. I read it chapter to chapter, and then immediately devoured the book when it came out in Hardcover. The differences between the two forms were illuminating and incredibly interesting, both from the point of view of the art, and from the point of view of the craft. It upended the usual process of a reader reading a book in its finished form. Because the finished Bonfire was quite a bit different than the serialized, publish as you go version.

And yet in another way, it wasn't that different at all. Wolfe knew where he was going, if not precisely how he was going to get there.

In metaphorical terms, it's that thing that drives women crazy sometimes when the guy in the front seat next to them insists they're not lost. In his mind, they're not, because he knows the direction they're going in, and roughly where they are, and where they need to be. And the woman's POV is "do you know exactly where you are RIGHT NOW? No? Then we are LOST."
(Gentle readers, I'll stipulate the stuff about this being gender stereotyping, ok? I got to watch about 25 years of this from the back seat, and have experienced roughly another five or ten from the driver's seat. I'll agree that I'm stereotyping, if you agree that we're just gonna let this one slide by and not get bogged down in a sidebar, k?)

Now, Chris -- you're the woman in this scenario.

(I think I just heard about 40 thousand Hillary Clintonistas snap their pencils in half. heh heh. I am such a bad, bad man.)

Anyhoo, the great, high wire act of TV is that unlike film where it's all done and in the can, and posted and release dates picked out and whatever, whatever -- most TV is on the air at the same time as later chapters are being made. It makes for a radically different level of engagement, and it requires a radically different type of writer. You have to be someone who can let go of what was in your head if you see something that's better. You have to know how far you're deviating off the beam, and when to bring it back. The LOST writers have been more candid then most about when and how they got off the beam. (Pablo and whats-her-name?) And in our shark-jumping age, the coolest thing is seeing people through the work, find the rhythm again and bring it back.

Hopefully HEROES gets to do something similar. I've said before that my favorite part of the BSG podcasts is how freely Ronald Moore cops to when a mistake was made in the writing.

TV series are invented beasts, made as you go along by craftspeople, all who you hope are working at the top of their game. But it's also a machine, and that rolling, 25 or 50 million dollar machine makes compromises along the way. The best shows seize on their happy accidents, and hopefully find a way to bury and overcome their shortcomings.

In a way, Chris, what you've stumbled into here is the other side of what I was talking about a long time ago when I talked about how what happens in the room has to stay in the room, and how writer/creators need to stay out of fan forums, no matter how tempting it is to go there. (And no matter how many times you may slip and do it anyway. I was raised Catholic, so hell -- you confess and say a novena and vow to do better next time.)

Just as the fan reaction to stories and to shows should be pure -- and overlord writers shouldn't wade in there and try to tamp opinion or blunt it by "sharing their knowledge," fans who take craft points they don't understand and use them to justify why they didn't like something can seem foolish, if they're not careful. Just because someone says they have evidence that we never walked on the moon or that men walked with dinosaurs doesn't make them, well, credible.

In a way, we were all a little bit better off when it wasn't so easy to see the man behind the curtain. Which is exactly the implication of what Abrams was saying in the Times article.

The moment in that article where I reeled back and realized, "wow, so much really HAS changed" was when Abrams was talking about Star Wars. I haven't thought about it this way, but yeah, back then we really did wait three whole years to find out if Darth Vader was telling the truth about being Luke's father. That boggles the mind now, in the era of 24/7 spoiler sites, where I can have instant access to Lindsay Lohan's dental records if I want them. No wonder the complexity has amped up.

And yet, and yet, and yet -- all this knowledge doesn't lead to happiness. You knowing that Ben was supposed to be in 3 episodes didn't make you like the show more - it in fact did the opposite.

That's why those who manage the information flow about projects like masters -- and Abrams is definitely in that realm -- have my undying admiration.

Of course, you're free to think that LOST sucks, and you're free to say it here. Just don't be surprised if people like me disagree with you. It's not that we don't respect your opinion. It's just that we look at it in a very different way. You think LOST is lost -- and we know that getting a little lost is just how you find your way to the final destination in your head.



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20/20

SO, I JUST finished up a very fast four weeks in a wonderful story room -- the third season for the much-admired (even by me) Less Than Kind.  Besides offering a chance to work with people I've long admired, like Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall, Studio 60, SNL)  and Brian Hartt (Jamie Kennedy Xperiment, MADtv) -- it's also a chance to come full circle. I story edited a very early version of the pilot script by my friends Marvin Kaye & Chris Sheasgreen, when they were part of the NSI Totally Television program.

And then there's Jenn Engels, who was nominated for a Canadian Screenwriting Award for a season 1 LTK script she wrote.  She's great on story.  And Kim Coghill gamely, patiently keeps the notes and preps for what will be her first professional script...one more new member for the WGC!

What a pleasure it is to be back working on a show that has a set of well-defined characters, and actors who you know can sell the scenes, as well as a tone that goes for both laughs & heart.  It's amazing that Canada's pay channels TMN & Movie Central rescued this worthy show.

As much as I love the room, now there's an outline and a script to write, as well as my own ongoing projects.  Now that I'm in a good, fullsteam workweek groove, I'm loathe to give it up.  And Oh Bloggy, you can so be a distraction.

So I'm stepping out for a bit.  For the next week or so, we're hosting "Hindsight Week" here in Sticksville.  Part of the fun of blogging is that there are no lead times; publishing is instant. What happens when we revisit old posts & opinions with wiser, older eyes & a fuller appreciation of what followed?

Well, guess we'll find out.

Note to commenters: comments will be on the original posts, but since I'm stepping out -- approvals might be slower than normal.  I'll get to them.  Meantime, enjoy the sun, and feel free to use this as an open thread to leave any suggestions for stuff you'd like to talk about or see down the road.

An earlier version of this story contained errors. It has been corrected.

If You're Going To The Movies This Weekend...

MAY I RECOMMEND SPLICE, the nifty horror flick that's currently 72% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes (so you know it's good) featuring the talents of, among others, Canadians Sarah Polley, Director Vincenzo Natali -- and one of the most nattily-dressed screenwriters I know, Doug Taylor.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hey Canadian Nets, Can We Be Upfront?

I FELT SORRY for Barbara Williams.

I really did.  She had a job to do -- a very specific job, which was to present the new fall offerings from Global Television in a positive way to entice advertisers.  It's a presentation that requires charm & clarity of message.  If you read any account of the U.S. network upfronts, which generally happen in the middle of May, you can see how it's done.  A stage managed parade of "it's never been better."  The brain might know that a year from now, 90% of these new shows you're talking up will be lying dead, broken, ignored, unloved, canceled -- but you will it not to show that.  Instead, you smile.  "Things have never been better."

Oh that was tough the last couple of years, to be sure.  Advertising was down, audiences were still eroding, everyone was abuzz about piracy, the internet, cable cannibalization of network numbers, the scourge of Tivo...not to mention the bankruptcy of GM, the world's largest advertiser, and that unbelievably stupid Leno-at-10pm turd.

But this year? Advertising's up.  They're back. They're looking to spend money.  The data on PVR's isn't so bad.  People still apparently appointment view. There's life in the old network girl yet!

But at Global's presentation of its fall schedule, something was definitely off.

Was it the protestors outside from ACTRA?  A few dozen of them, saying what they say at every one of these things -- "we should tell our own stories," etc.

It can't be them.  Can't be! I mean, ACTRA's been protesting like that for years. They did it in front of the upfront at the Elgin. They've done it ... well, they've done it A LOT.   Eric Peterson, God love him, he always shows up. And sometimes Paul Gross is there.  If you spot Wendy Crewson at one of those things, you get to yell, "bingo!"

Yet, lo and behold, and a wag of the finger to all you Eeyores out there who insist there's no point tryin' anything -- this time, that protest worked...

If the press is anything to go by, I mean.

In article after article after article -- Global's launch message was muddied, shoved aside, and forced to share the spotlight with some very unusual creative-driven questions:  "why does the spending on U.S. programming go up every year?" "Why does your big splashy fall schedule only have one homegrown show on it?" "Why should we be excited by a warmed-over rehash of shows we get on the U.S. networks on our cable dials already?"

When you're talking through the smile of "things are going great," that's just not the message you want to have out there. So what happened?

Well, I submit to you that finally, the Broadcasters brought this on themselves. And Global bore the brunt by going first, and not being ready with an integrated counter message. The combination over the relentlessly partisan rah rah "Save Local TV" campaign, combined with the CRTC hearings and scrutiny over their business models has finally filtered through to the journalist class.

Instead of viewing the economic downturn of 2008 as a cyclical bump in their business, the Canadian nets pounced and called it a "permanent downturn" and used it to hysterically call for all sorts of relief -- Fee For Carriage, and of course, a reduction in CanCon.

But, see, you can't square that with the upfront mentality, especially when all signs point to a resurgence in ad spending.  And there is the inconvenient fact that the U.S. spending still went up when they were crying poor.  With those numbers floating out there, and the whole bad taste from the "Save Local TV" imbroglio still brewing, it was bound to create a climate where people took a harder look at what the business model of Canadian TV really is.

And when you do look at it, it's pretty indefensible. It's lazy. It's parasitic and it trades only on the creativity of another nation.  Even the CRTC knows it -- though they do try to bury their own reports when they come out and say it.

The other piece of blowback could be called, "the Corner Gas/Flashpoint effect."

Now that some of those homegrown shows are starting to get good, it's a natural thing to ask, "well, why aren't there more of them?"  Why DO the Canadian nets insist on doing only the bare minimum that they are dragged kicking and screaming into doing?  From a consumer standpoint, what is the value of having networks that only replicate the U.S. schedules?

When Barbara Williams stood on the stage earlier this week, what she didn't realize is that she was standing on the wrong side of the Tipping Point.  She faced a "friendly audience" at the CRTC when she presented there last year about the network TV problem (so friendly that the CRTC redacted all her testimony, creating the odd spectacle of a commission that's supposed to protect consumer's rights in the broadcast sphere holding secret hearings)  but the combination of bad theatre over the local TV thing, the mounting questions, years of ACTRA protests, the wall-falling nature of things like Hulu, the Net, Torrents and iTunes have all coalesced.   These questions over CanCon, and what are you doing, what are you MAKING for viewers? They are never going away again.  They are a permanent part of the conversation now.

The truth is, Global is making homegrown shows.  More than perhaps they've ever done before.  They have a simulcast coming up with Rookie Blue in a couple of weeks. They have greenlit pilots, and ordered series. But they're so used to not talking about any of that that Barb Williams only got to bring it up in response to questions about the lack of CanCon, and the ACTRA protest -- which immediately made them sound defensive.  Because it WAS DEFENSIVE.

CTV read those tea leaves clearly, and did a serious adjust in time for their upfront presentation yesterday.  Among the self-congratulatory email releases was one frontloading just how much they were doing in terms of CanCon.  And you know what? They deserve the lap.  I, and many others, may have differing things to say about a slate that includes Flashpoint, The Bridge, The Listener, Dan For Mayor, Hiccups, Degrassi and all -- but they all got renewed yesterday.  Some of them are even drawing numbers.  CTV supports them with advertising.  They play some of the same games at the CRTC, to be sure, and they're certainly not busting down the doors to bring you CanCon this fall -- but the truth is, they deserve their victory lap. They've done the work. And they were ready with the release to shine a light on what they have.  I'm sure the fact that it also allowed them to tweak their rival Global played a part in it, but you know, whatever.

Meanwhile, there are the others.  You know a few years ago when I had a show on Citytv -- I wasn't even invited to the upfronts.   Don't boohoo for me, Argentina -- I'm not so special...nobody with a Canadian show was.  And in the Rogers-era, so far there's no evidence that that's changed.

Last night, you could read tweets from the CTV party by the co-creator of Flashpoint.

That's the new world, kids.  The conversation is different now.

So congrats to ACTRA for keeping the heat on, and WGC for doggedly getting those U.S. spend numbers out there, over and over -- and anyone who raised a finger to raise the alarm. The message has finally trickled down.  What happens next?

Well, that's up to them.  I dream of the day when these guys realize -- as CTV has started to -- that maybe pushing your CanCon just a little is good business, too.   That celebrating Canadian talent only after you've forced them to move to the USA is a bit perverse.  That if you're the CBC, you can fade a lot of built-in goodwill by floating a fall schedule with nothing new.  That burying stuff on the specialties & Fridays & Saturdays in the winter in favor of shows -- 90% of which won't live the season -- isn't the best foot to put forward.  That if you're the Movie Channels -- Astral & Corus-owned, and you push your CanCon like you push stuff from HBO and Showtime -- that you gain respect.

Most of all, I dream of the day when the Canadian nets -- all of them -- realize that the shows they make themselves are part of the story they have to tell at the upfronts...not merely the tax on their business they have to endure.

You want a party free of protestors, and headlines that are on message? That's what it's going to take.

I hope Barbara Williams gets lots of good headlines when Rookie Blue premieres. After the rough ride she had this week, she deserves them.

The New Copyright Bill in 50 Words or Less

THERE'LL BE MORE later, including the WGC's reaction to the bill, but basically, to parse the new copyright bill:

If you're a consumer:  you get some concessions for fair dealing, timeshifting, format shifting, parody, satire & YouTube -- unless there's a digital lock on the content, in which case you're fucked.

If you're a content creator:  you're just fucked.

If you're a huge multinational company in the bricks & mortar business:  you get a "get out of freedom free" card -- no restrictions on placing digital locks on anything.  So basically, you get a license to fuck.

So, same old story.

POVTV

SERIOCITY'S Kay Reindl has some crunchy crafty goodness with a big bright post about POV -- and especially how POV relates to LOST.  There is a definite chill every writer feels when it comes to storytelling POV... you have tremendous pressure to make the character's choices understandable at every single juncture.

And yet from The Sopranos, to Six Feet Under, to LOST, to The Shield -- many of the most compelling shows with the greatest characters don't bother with that fooferaw.

Both Lost and Twin Peaks had ensembles that were heavily into their own points-of-view. I think the shows that try to ape this success, like FlashForward, do so with the typical omniscient TeeVee point-of-view. And just before some of you wiseacres think I'm saying that ensemble shows are character-driven while single-lead shows aren't, that ain't the case. THINK ABOUT THIS. In most TeeVee shows, you're watching a chosen point-of-view. It's safe; there may be character or plot surprises, but you know that what you're seeing is what's happened. Stuff may get held back, but you watch because you know that the omniscient friend with which you've made a pact will faithfully reveal the truth to you at some pre-designated point in the future (end of episode, two-parter, episode arc, season).

Lost didn't make that pact with people. Now, if you went into the show expecting the answers that you get from other shows, then yeah. You'll be disappointed. And maybe that kind of storytelling just isn't your cup of tea. Doesn't mean it's wrong.

You know what other show does this? Damages. And I dig that show. Except for season two. But one and three? Fantastic.

In the great unfortunate battle between creators & that one vocal nitpick section of the audience, more ammo.  Go read Kay.

No News is Just No News

WE LIVE IN a bit of a fraught media moment.   There are new rules on copyright coming -- rules that might unnecessarily shackle consumers and content creators at the behest of large corporate conglomerates.  After crying poor because of the recession & stating that there wouldn't be a huge spending spree for U.S. shows this year, it looks like the Canadian nets went down and did exactly that.  Meanwhile, the pushoff of license renewals means that Canadian creatives won't have any sense of what we're making for about another year, as lawyers everywhere tread water and try to find loopholes in the new Canadian television policy.

In the meantime, homegrown gossip mavens send out breathless press releases about dubious scoops.  The number two private network in the country has just been taken over by a large cabler. The same large cabler has successfully reconfigured the CMF so that the board members are all cable cronies.  Creatives need not worry, they say, you will be heard -- in the same fabulous, paternalistic way as always, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are on the warpath about...everything, really, but let's just call it the CBC for now.

There are questions, and lots of them, about media concentration, the future of homegrown broadcasting, how consumer choice should shape the industry going forward ...

... not to mention things like, well, the fact that they're talking about a National Digital Strategy five years too late; the people who seem to have the ear on the government on that file are the same snake oil salesmen I've been hearing bleat since my days pre-dot.com crash covering the street for Media Television... oh, and nobody but my friend Howard Bernstein seems to be able to lay out a cogent explanation of the ongoing troubles with Canadian Local TV.

And nobody knows who, or how, Canadian networks are going to make the transition to full digital broadcasting.  (The U.S. stations by the way, are mostly done.)

Canada is the second largest country in the world by land mass, yet it's small in population. Spread out. We are wracked by regionalism, resentments rooted in geography that go back to our founding as a nation.  Not fighting at your birth means, maybe, that you push the big fights further down the road. But at a time when we need local voices & local coverage, we have less than ever. We have some of the most concentrated media in the world.

One story can show you what happens when you have a concentrated media and no valve.  Jim Henshaw wrote about this the other day, but if you'll indulge me a moment, I will recap it in short for those who may not be from my corner of the country.  The Province of Ontario's Attorney General was involved in a vehicular accident a year ago in which a bicycle courier was killed. There is surveillance footage showing the car speeding away.  There were also unsavory details that came out about the courier -- his alcohol level, previous altercations with motorists, etc.  Point is, the courier's dead. And now, because an outside prosecutor brought in to hear the case decided there was not enough evidence, there will be no trial for Michael Bryant.

This may have been the right call, for all I know.  I know that the details about the courier gave me pause. I've ridden a bike downtown, and been scared by crazy drivers -- but I've also been a driver desperately looking for bicycles and incensed when a rider flouted the rules of the road; riding unsafely, running lights, going the wrong way up a one way street and a hundred other moves.

But what's happened now is that there is no satisfaction on either side. Evidence will never be heard. We will never settle this as a society. It will always remain there, hanging, the two factions convinced they're right, a vague queasy sense of a backroom deal, and many people feeling like that deal robbed us of a public airing; of justice.

There's a lot of that in Canadian society.  I remember learning about the Family Compact in my Canadian History.  Like Tammany Hall in NYC, the Family Compact was the group of families who ran everything for their own benefit here in the early days of Upper Canada.

It was a set of controls made all the easier by the docile nature of the Canadian.  Slow to provoke, slow to object -- given to grumbling mightily but never organizing or really doing much of anything.  (Save the occasional rebellion or General Strike, I mean.)

Well, here we sit now in an age of communications uncertainty. Foreign ownership, editorial independence, Canadian voices -- all of this is up for grabs right now.  And it's not really being written about.

A strong rumor from many sources indicated that in the runup to the "Save Local TV" "TV Tax" last time,  a certain Canadian paper with broadcast interests had a standing policy that the discussion of the issues of Fee For Carriage be restricted to the Business Pages.  The Arts pages were not to be used to discuss the issues arising from the debate -- lest they rile up those excitable creatives & people who care about culture.  And lo, they were not used for that purpose. And that part of the debate was never joined.  It stayed a nice, hermetically sealed business story.

Even papers like The Toronto Star, with no major broadcast interests, gave the issue short shrift. Who is reporting on media issues, whether from a creative industry or consumer side?  A few blogs. A few paid industry newsletters that never trickle down to the public. Nobody else.

Then, last week, a wonderful piece of doublespeak flew into people's inboxes.  It seems in order to serve us better, Playback, the publication that served as the putative "industry paper," for the Canadian TV industry, had folded its print version, and would henceforth publish only electronically.  This would allow for more immediacy, or something.

Playback has gone through a rocky road through the years, from being a rag that published stuff you mostly already knew to having occasional flashes of insight or good writing & reportage.  Mostly, though, it's always been a reliable repository for the fawning "tribute to" this or that issue -- somebody in the club who's retiring, meeting a career milestone, grabbing a gold watch or something.  It's not rare to see a single-sourced story in Playback -- nor is it particularly odd to see a rewritten press release served up as news.

What was interesting in the runup to their announcement, though, was Playback didn't cover what I would say was the real story: the fact that when they folded the paper, they laid off a significant portion of their staff.  About 20 people, including the editor.

Now you can play any game you want talking about how they're going to do more with less -- but we both know that's not how it works.

And though I looked, I didn't really see any coverage of Playback laying off their staff in any of the nation's newspapers.

So there are all these questions, all these issues going forward in Canadian broadcasting.  It's a strange time.

And I guess you better hope that all us free bloggers keep writing about them, because aside from some expensive subscription-only newsletters with narrower focuses, you're not going to read any day to day journalism covering the beat.

Don't you feel well served?