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Saturday 22 November 2008

Status anxiety

What bugs me is not identity fraud but who will be watchdog to BBC’s Watchdog

Toby Young has no need of a noddy shot

The reason she was contacting me was to see if I’d like to be interviewed on the BBC consumer affairs programme. Not surprisingly, I was a bit reluctant. I didn’t relish the prospect of appearing on the show as a credulous fool who had been hoodwinked by one of the programme’s reporters. However, after a bit of back-and-forth, she eventually hit upon a way of persuading me to do it: she offered me £250. I was a little taken aback — I had always associated Watchdog with investigative journalism, not chequebook journalism — but it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

On the day in question I turned up slightly early and I was able to watch as the previous interviewee — a scruffy-looking young man — was given the third degree. At the conclusion of the interview, a man I took to be the director asked the young man to carry on talking while Julia Bradbury, the programme’s presenter, nodded attentively.

‘Don’t worry about what you’re saying as we’re not recording for sound,’ said the director.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a “noddy”?’ I was expecting the director to laugh, but he took the question seriously. This was Watchdog, after all.

‘No,’ he said. ‘A “noddy” is when you film the presenter reacting after the fact and then cut it in afterwards to make it look as if they’re reacting to what the person is saying as they’re saying it.’

‘But isn’t that what you’re doing?’

‘It’s not a “noddy” if the person is still sitting there when you film the presenter’s reactions.’

‘Yes, but —’

‘It’s not a “noddy”, OK? Now can I please do my job? Thank you.’

Shortly afterwards, when it was my turn to be interviewed, the director announced that they’d be doing a ‘reverse shot’. This meant that Julia Bradbury would sit where the previous interviewee had been sitting and I would sit where she’d been sitting.

‘What’s the point of that?’ I asked.

‘To imply that a certain amount of time has elapsed between this interview and the previous one,’ the director explained.

‘Aha,’ I said. ‘Another deception.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘because a certain amount of time has elapsed, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but —’

‘It’s not a deception, all right? Now can we kindly get on with it?’

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