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ITV 'Investigative Reporters' Confuse Video Game With Terrorist Video

from the investigate-a-little-more dept

Wed, Sep 28th 2011 7:57pm — Mike Masnick

A bunch of folks have been sending in variations on this story about how the UK's ITV's new "investigative current affairs" program broadcast a special about Gadaffi and the IRA... but used video game footage of ARMA 2, which came out a couple years ago. The YouTube video included in that story at RockPaperShotgun has been taken down, but another version over at the Telegraph has another version of the video:

The video footage claims to be "the terrorists' own footage" from 1988, but seems pretty clearly to be video game footage rather than live action.

As for how it happened, ITV claims that it really did have legitimate footage, but somehow got mixed up:

"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.�

Of course, there's a pretty obvious reason why the mistake was made. A search on YouTube turns up the same footage labeled as a P-IRA attack on a British helicopter in 1988... just like the ITV report claimed: Of course, mistakes happen, but when it's from an investigative reporting unit, it sort of makes you wonder...

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Filed Under: investigative reporting, video games
Companies: itv

28 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 8:04pm

Wait until directx 12 hits the shelves LoL

ps: DirectX 12 didn't come out most videos on Youtube are of people fooling around.

Until then we can see some real crime in American streets from the game Mafia 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVkHraUDDpk
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Liz (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 8:57pm

As Thompson and Grossman separately warned us, "Video games are mass-murder simulators."
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Jake, 28 Sep 2011 @ 10:36pm

I believe this is the footage they intended to use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIgNj43S9sE&feature=related

Notice that in spite of being labelled as archive footage taken by the Provisional IRA itself, it cuts straight from shots of assorted medium and heavy machine guns being test-fired to a BBC news report about a helicopter going down near the border with the Republic of Ireland.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 11:07pm

As an avid Arma 2 player (and having just got out of a game), I have to say that I support this mostly because Arma in the first place was built as a simulator for infantrymen. (And it is VERY accurate in many regards, if not a big buggy here and there).

Really I support this, many people who are not familiar with the game think that it looks amazing. Sure, it's a massive cock-up, but this kind of publicity for the game can't really be a bad thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:00am

Reminds me of the whole "mass effect is a porno" thing.

Seems that news reporters suddenly become terrible at their jobs when video games are involved.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 3:00am

Psh
Directx is for tiny babies.

Real men use OpenGL.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 3:52am

Re: Psh
REAL man use ASCII graphics.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 4:04am

Re:
The problem is you see haw the news is poorly produced when you know anything about the subject matter.

The people in that game footage didn't look right which should have been a clue- I think it was they didn't move around enough, no minor shifts in position.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 4:14am

Re: Re: Psh
Bah, pen and paper RPGs is where it's at.
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abc gum, 29 Sep 2011 @ 5:08am

Investigative Reporters are on the endangered species list. Their numbers have decreased significantly in the recent past, to the point where they are hardly ever seen anymore. I think I caught a glimpse of one last year, it was difficult to distinguish due to all the green backs and yellow journals.
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freak (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 5:09am

Re: Re: Re: Psh
Pah! My Quill & Papyrus spits on your numby-wimby pansy-wansy pen & paper!
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 5:12am

It's more and more incidents like this happening that are part of why people are growing more and more mistrustful of the news media today (that and blatant political bias in some like Fox).
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 5:42am

Re:
(that and blatant political bias in every last one of them.)

FTFY
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HothMonster, 29 Sep 2011 @ 7:44am

why is this footage so grainy and have all those jagged edges?

its from 1998, no HD

oh ok then.
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HothMonster, 29 Sep 2011 @ 7:46am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
stone and chisel is the way to go
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Beta (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 9:04am

Re:
"Sure, it's a massive cock-up, but this kind of publicity for the game can't really be a bad thing."

I admit this makes me curious to see the game, but... somehow I feel that there's some big point we're missing...
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Marcus Carab (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 9:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
Red ochre and a cave.
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freak (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 10:08am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
Red ochre?! You and your new technologies!

REAL men place giant boulders in giant fields to spell out their thoughts, because biggest rock is best rock!
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Marcus Carab (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 11:02am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
Nice try - but red ochre wins :) 75k years ago is the first confirmed use - long before any known megaliths, the earliest of which date to around 9000BC.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
(Stonehenge, by comparison, is less than 5000 years old - a baby in prehistoric terms!)
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Ron Rezendes (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 11:34am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
Hieroglyphics carved with stone and chisel - old skool class that shows creative intelligence, only the uneducated won't understand!
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freak (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 12:10pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
I'm was thinking in technological steps, not chronological ones, but fair enough :)
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Marcus Carab (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 12:46pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
Megalithic structures require WAY more technology - ropes and a-frames and levers and such! Ochre you pick up off the ground and rub against stuff.
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hmm (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:48pm

oh no
So all this time I've been playing games I've been committing REAL crimes every time I shoot someone?...

No wonder all those ghosts keep hanging round outside my window moaning at me then.....
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hmm (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:49pm

In other news
By Christmas we'll have programs on Fox of the "Battle for Libya 2", featuring mechadaffi vs obamasaurus.....
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hmm (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:51pm

Re:
They're all to busy investigating which celebrity upskirt shots will get them the most cold hard cash.....
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Marcus Carab (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 3:30pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
p.s. @freak I'm genuinely not trying to shoot you down or anything - this is just a topic that tends to immediately and powerfully engage me :)
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freak (profile), 30 Sep 2011 @ 1:14pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Psh
I don't feel any animosity at all, Marcus. Nor do I intend any :)

Also, for merely having megaliths, you'd be wrong. To make a lot of them, yeah, you'd want technology, but, for example, the rock formations made by the Inuit, the inuksuks, were made only by hand.

Inunnguaq's, at least the larger ones, were often made using tools to help the stones stand upright until the head stone was put in place, but some of the largest Inuksuks were made entirely by hand.

Of course, on the time scale, red ochre still beats them hands down. And if we're talking about communication, I can't prove any inuksuk was ever used for that purpose, even if it's entirely possible.
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