According to the Guardian, the independent UK broadcasting watchdog OfCom is examining ITV's use of footage from the Bohemia's ARMA 2 videogame in a documentary special that was presented as an IRA film from 1988. The video was shown during the show Exposure and was presented to viewers as real footage showing the IRA using weapons provided by Muammar Gaddafi.
"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," said an ITV spokesman at the time. "This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise."
Ofcom is investigating how ITV's current affairs show Exposure mistakenly used the video game footage in a documentary.
ITV aired the game footage in the first episode of Exposure last month.
The episode, about Gaddafi and the IRA, was supposed to present solid evidence of the Libyan dictator's support of the IRA. Instead it made the creators of the film look silly and inept. ITV blamed "human error" and said it did have the correct footage. Ofcom announced today that it was launching an investigation to find out if this incident constitutes a breach of its broadcasting code.
