2 columns site help

[eluser]UnknownPlayer[/eluser]
Hi,
i wonna make 2 columns website, now i have 1 problem.
Example, i will have controller news, downloads, videos.
Now on each page on right side(second column) will be different.
- news will have top news
- downloads will have top downloads
- videos will have top videos

now, problem is, do i need to use db queries to select top news in view, or i must pass it through $data variable from controller ?
When i worked on core php, i did this with including side.php file where i put all divs and there i get from db all content that i need, and check basename() of page to check which page is current.

Is there any example for something like this ?