Now 'Newsnight' admits doctoring a report

The BBC was embroiled in a fresh row over doctored television footage yesterday after Newsnight admitted that the chronology had been changed in a film about Gordon Brown.

The corporation admitted that the independent film-maker Jamie Campbell had altered the chronology of a film showing him being blocked from interviewing Brown during his campaign for the Labour leadership .

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The admission - and a separate admission by Channel 4 that a film showing the chef Gordon Ramsay spearing sea-bass off the Devon coast and then barbecuing them was faked - capped a week of controversy for TV broadcasters.

The fish had been caught by a member of the British spearfishing squad 20 minutes earlier and then handed to the TV chef.

The BBC, however, was unapologetic over the change in sequence of the Brown film, claiming it made no difference to the meaning of the film. In the film, Mr Campbell gave the impression he was deliberately targeted for questioning by police - showing him being blocked by a press officer from filming Mr Brown as he arrived at Lancaster House on 5 June.

It then moved to further footage showing Campbell hoping to film Mr Brown after attending a CBI dinner and saying: "But the same Treasury official catches sight of me and makes a phone call. By strange coincidence, within seconds, I am being hauled aside and searched by police under the counter-terrorism Act."

The two events happened in the reverse order and the press officer concerned denied summoning police.

Robbie Gibb, Newsnight's deputy editor, said the Treasury "were not happy with the film in general but directed their complaint at how the film portrayed a Treasury press officer claiming that the chronology of the two events was out of sequence." He added, however, that the commentary had not suggested that the two events were chronological - and that the film would have had the same meaning if they had been played in the reverse order.

The row comes just a few days after the BBC was forced to apologise to the Queen for suggesting she had walked out of a photographic shoot with Annie Leibovitz during a fly-on-the wall documentary. The film had, in fact, depicted the Queen arriving for the photographic session and the footage was shot before she met Leibovitz.

The former BBC chairman Michael Grade, who now runs ITV, told Radio 4's Today programme that he saw a wider problem in broadcasting because of an influx of young, inexperienced people. "They have not been trained properly," he said. "They do not understand you do not lie to audiences any time in any show - whether it is news or a quiz."

In the Gordon Ramsay series The F Word, the chef puts on a wet suit, grabs a speargun and then goes out to sea to hunt, bass, bream and mullet. He is then seen with three sea bass saying: "I have got three stunning sea bass. I have never caught a fish from a spear and it's not bad for first time out."

A spokeswoman for Channel 4 said "regrettably" the film had been wrong to suggest that Ramsay had speared the fish himself. She said Channel 4 was working with the independent production company responsible for the series, Optomen, "to ensure this doesn't happen again".