I constantly find myself wondering about the producer who lines up the news run at CFTO, because a lot of the time, it just seems like the show is thrown together without much thought.

Take Monday's noon program. They led off the top with the appointment of ex-MP Dr. Jane Philpott at Queen's Park to inaugurate a program to find millions of Ontarians a family doctor. A perfectly good story, made even more intriguing by the fact she's a Liberal and the government that appointed her is Conservative. They even called it their top story. 

They did it in a single headline, promising "more in a moment", before going to a major fire apparently sparked by defective e-bike batteries. Fair enough. Producers like good viz and flames and smoldering wreckage sadly fills that bill. 

But what of their top story? I watched and waited. And waited. And waited. They did items on accidents, arrests, the Middle East, the King in Australia and more, but still no Philpott story. It finally came on - at 20 minutes into the show! That is obviously NOT a top story. 

Look, I get the idea of teasers, making you stay tuned to see a story you might be interested in. I've written thousands of them over the years. But to lead with something as a one sentence promo, call it the most important story of the day and then not come back to it for 20 minutes? Why would you do that? Unless it wasn't ready at the time, which is always possible, there's simply no reason to put your supposed lead that far down in the show. 

I've noticed this before. A few weeks ago, they did a story about the TTC, then went on to a myriad of other things for around 10 minutes, only to come back and do another story on the TTC. Why would you separate them when you've already broached the topic? We would always group those stories together to make the script more seamless. 

CTV often doesn't and I will never figure out why. I've produced or had a hand in hundreds of TV news shows over the years. I've never seen anyone else do this.

I can't help but wonder what they're thinking.

Or if they're thinking at all.