Danish TV station with Assassins creed background. Taken by pej from http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-11-danish-tv-channel-sorry-for-using-assassins-creed-screenshot-to-illustrate-syria-news-report
Oops: This screenshot of Assassin’s Creed was mistaken for a picture of Damascus (Picture: TV2)

Computer games are getting more and more realistic – as a Danish TV company found out to its cost.

Channel TV2 has been forced to apologise for using a screenshot of video game Assassin’s Creed as a backdrop for a news report about the fighting in Syria.

A member of staff found the image online and mistook it for a photograph of the Damascus skyline.

Jacob Nybroe, head of news at  TV2, said it was a ‘reminder to us all of the importance of verifying the sources of pictures’.

It is not the first time a TV channel has mistaken real-life for the world of video games.

ITV confused a clip of war game ArmA 2 for real-life footage of a Libya-funded IRA attack. And the BBC last year used Halo’s UNSC logo instead of the United Nations.