War Correspondent FAIL

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Over in the UK, an ITV documentary called Exposure tried to document Gadhafi's links with the Irish Republican Army. They aired the above footage and claimed it showed IRA terrorists using Libyan-supplied weapons in 1988.

Except the footage is actually taken from the ArmA 2 video game. How can a fully-funded national news organization make such an obvious error? PC Gamer offers an excellent theory, based on this YouTube video falsely labeled as "PIRA Shoot Down British Helicopter 1988."

Even if no one in the building was a gamer (and, you know, hire some gamers to work in your editing rooms. They usually know what they're doing with the computers), it should have occurred to someone that the kind of handheld video technology that would lend itself to recording the scenario DIDN'T REALLY EXIST in 1988. What, a bunch of IRA guys just let a giant news crew with huge cameras and a huger truck follow them around while they took potshots at helicopters?

Someone in Parliament is bound to suggest that Britain should protect the public by requiring that video game companies make their games less realistic but the real cluelessness comes from lazy producers trying to grab a few seconds of film off the Internet to fill a hole in their program.

Congrats to the ArmA 2 guys, though. It's pretty badass advertising when people think your game footage is real.