The Noddy shot - echo from a long-gone broadcasting era?

It is interesting that the latest policy statement regarding news broadcasting has come from Channel 5, bless them. I am not aware that Channel 5 have been implicated in any of the recent furores over television faux pas.

I heard some numpty on the telly describing Channel 5's policy change (saying they would not, in future, use "Noddy shots" and "walking along St Stephen's Green shots") as an inadequate response to the recent scandals.

But, in fact, it seems more of a leap into the twenty-first century. The noddy/St Stephen's walk shots were very much a child of the film era, when telly stations broadcast most of their news via film and had precious few cameras. There also tended to be longer film insert pieces in news programmes.

These days it's all digital and the insert pieces tend to be much shorter. We don't actually need to see the interviewer nodding or confirmation that the interviewee has a body and can walk five yards across St Stephen's Green without collpasing.