TO nod or not to nod? That is the thorny question facing television broadcasters as they launch a crackdown on staged shots in news programmes to win back the trust of viewers.

In doubt is the future of the “noddy”, the long-established trick in which a reporter is shown supposedly nodding in agreement with an interviewee, but which is actually filmed after the subject has long gone.

Other staged editing techniques facing the chop include the “walking shot”, often used to introduce an interviewee as he or she strides past a camera, and shots of reporters repeating their questions after an interview has finished.

Last week Five announced that it was scrapping such “hackneyed tricks” following a spate of scandals, including rigged phone-in competitions and wrongly edited footage of the Queen, which has left audiences wondering if broadcasters can be trusted to tell the truth.

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BACKGROUND

• BBC fined £50,000 for Blue Peter scandal

• BBC boss and the Queen’s ‘huff’

• Time to hang up on TV phone-ins

• GMTV cheated 25m of its phone-in callers

The BBC has got in on the act. Newsnight, the corporation’s flagship news programme, has asked viewers which editing techniques they would axe, while all BBC journalists will be forced to debate the merits of staged shots on a new training course called Safeguarding Trust.

A recent e-mail about the course sent by Peter Horrocks, head of BBC television news, asked: “Can you butt together clips from different parts of an interview? Can you edit recorded interviews out of sequence? Should TV abandon cutaways and noddies in favour of transparency where two clips are being joined together?”

David Kermode, editor of Five News, is unequivocal about such practices. “The time has come to wake up and understand that some of the things that we used to do can’t really be justified any more,” he said.

“It’s about transparency, it’s about being a bit more honest about how we make TV news.”

Newsnight, whose presenters include Jeremy Paxman and Emily Maitlis, is also getting tough.

Peter Barron, the programme’s editor, has outlawed walking shots and said of noddies: “I’d stop short of a total ban, but we certainly encourage our producers to use them sparingly.”

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