ITV use game footage instead of real IRA clip in Gaddafi documentary mix-up

An ITV documentary called “Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA” aired this week showing how the Libyan dictator helped fund and supply IRA terrorist attacks. In the show, ITV included a clip of a 1988 Provisional IRA attack on a British helicopter, resulting in the chopper crashing.

No-one was hurt in the crash, said the show.

Well, that’s probably because the crash never happened. The clip was in fact footage taken from the PC war simulation game ARMA 2.

Seriously. How the hell can a mix up that embarrassing happen? So the YouTube clip that was the original source for the mix-up has a misleading title, but it’s a horribly researched, insensitve mistake.

I suppose at least it makes a change from the mass media claiming the general gaming public can’t tell the difference between games and real life though, eh?

View the documentary in question through the ITV Player in the UK by clicking here. The offending footage can be found at roughly the 28 minute mark.