From the Rose Law Group Reporter Growlery
By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
The 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds was the apocalyptic story of a northern California coastal town filled with an onslaught of seemingly unexplained, arbitrary and chaotic attacks of ordinary birds and not birds of prey.
Flash forward: There’s a fender-bender on the 101.
Here come the birds.
There’s a wild horse roundup in Cochise County.
Here come the birds.
The birds are news drones
Because of new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules issued last week (See Rose Law Group Reporter’s coverage.) Drone journalism, which we’ll call “dronalism,” is coming to newspapers and TV stations across the nation by August.
Here come the birds to cover events, peer into buildings and capture images like never before, says Matt Waite, founder of the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska.
The new rules require a test and licensing of drone pilots. They also detail off-limits areas, but for many news events, drone use would be permitted. Limitations include flying directly over humans, and that would include sporting events.
“[T]his will necessarily raise privacy concerns, Rose Law Group litigator Logan Elia said Monday. “On balance, we hope the journalistic integrity ingrained in some news organizations will lead the way for others. Abuses will exist.”
Investigative reporters are often faced with privacy issues. I, for one, have always been lukewarm on the use of hidden cameras. While privacy is of high concern with dronalism, I’m also concerned it will lead to a trend where the reporting method becomes the story, rather than the subject being reported.
Television news is prone to excessive hype: “KRAP, the first station in Arizona with drones; Drone around Arizona with KORN News,” or “KELP, able to leap tall buildings to get the story.”
Having to purchase drones and have qualified pilots on staff will cause further budget problems for stations, many of which will opt to lay off more real reporters and helicopter crews to make way for Captain Journalism.
And then there’s that mid-air collision thing.
