ITV Gaddafi documentary claimed videogame was terrorist footage

[Magda Hassan]

ITV Gaddafi documentary claimed videogame was terrorist footage

The producers of ITV's new investigative current affairs programme, Exposure, face major embarrassment after it was revealed footage they described as an IRA terrorist video made in 1988 was actually taken from a videogame released two years ago.

By Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent

5:41PM BST 27 Sep 2011

Video here


Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA, broadcast on Monday night, explored the flow of weapons and money from the former Libyan dictator to Irish Republican terrorists. It was billed as the first of six documentaries "providing an in-depth, revealing focus on a range of powerful subjects".

The programme was removed from ITV's online catch-up service on Tuesday afternoon, however, after videogamers recognised computer-generated video.

The hour-long investigation, produced by ITV's own ITV Studios, in association with Sylvia Jones, included a video that it said showed terrorists shooting down a British army helicopter in 1988.

"With Gaddafi's heavy machine guns, it was possible to shoot down a helicopter, as the terrorists' own footage of 1988 shows," the narrator, the actor Paul McGann, said.

"This was what the security forces feared most. It may have been a lucky hit, but for the army and crew, once was enough. No-one died in this attack but there were many other deadly arms to fear."



But computer-generated material was quickly recognised by fans of the military videogame ARMA 2, which released for Windows PCs in 2009 and is set in a fictional post-Soviet Eastern Bloc country. Some speculated that producers may have taken the video from YouTube, where it was posted on March 24 this year and titled "P-IRA Ambush British Helicopter, Silverbridge South Armagh, 23 June 1988".
An ITV spokesman said producers had genuine footage of a British army helicopter being shot down in 1988 but used the videogame material by mistake.
"The events featured in Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA were genuine but it would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers," he said.
"This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise."
He added that the documentary would be re-edited to include the authentic footage before being made available again online.
ARMA 2 fans complained about the ITV documentary on web forums run by the videogame's producers, Prague-based Bohemia Interactive, claiming it was "painfully obvious" it was taken was from ARMA 2.
A Bohemia Interactive representative responded: "We've had requests in the past to use ARMA 2 footage for scenes in a documentary and the request was turned down because of the possibility it showed ARMA 2/Bohemia Interactive in a negative way, now using our game to show the actions of terrorists is potentially a very negative and damaging use."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ne...otage.html