Drone journalism

Lore & Background

The concept of drone journalism was first explored in 2002 at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies by Larry Larsen, who looked at the ethical and practical use of unmanned aerial vehicles for reporting and research. In the summer of 2003, Larsen built the first UAV specifically for drone journalism using a quadcopter platform streaming wireless video recorded in the field with an Archos AV300. In 2012, Matt Waite founded the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Drone Journalism Lab to explore how drones can be used for reporting, focusing on the ethicality, legality, and practicality of drone use in journalism. In 2013, Waite received a cease-and-desist notice from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Several universities, companies, and NGOs are testing drones in this context, including the Drone Journalism Lab, the Drone Journalism Program at the University of Missouri, the Civic Drone Centre at the University of Central Lancashire, and africanDRONE based in Cape Town, South Africa. In India, drone journalism was introduced at IIMC in 2019 as an additional workshop in course curriculum, conducted by Squadron leader Varsha Kukreti (retd.) and Group Captain MJ Augustine Vinoth (retd.). In Africa, africanDRONE was formally established in 2018 as a non-profit organization of drone pilots, journalists, enthusiasts and advocates, providing a repository of legal information on drone laws in various African countries. In Canada, the College of the North Atlantic produced a drone journalism code of conduct in 2014. In the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published a report in 2013 on the challenges and opportunities of drones in news gathering.

Reader's Guide

Drone journalism is significant because it offers journalists a safer and more cost-efficient means of video recording compared to traditional helicopter aerial footage, especially in highly vulnerable coverage areas such as volcanic eruptions, war-torn villages, and natural disasters. The article notes that the use of drones for information collection in journalism is still new. A major ethical concern is the potential for invading people's privacy, with questions about whether individuals have the right to expect privacy when photographed from thousands of feet above ground. The FAA held an engagement session on drone privacy on April 3, 2013, where public concerns included privacy risks, mission creep, opposition to government regulations, safety hazards, and the view that drones are the future of aviation. Matt Waite and Matthew Schroyer hold that existing journalistic ethics codes can apply to drones, as many questions in drone journalism debates have already been raised regarding telephoto lenses and helicopters. Schroyer and members of DroneJournalism.org are seeking to create a drone journalism code of ethics, including appeals for use of drones only when there is no safer method, though the code holds that violation of state laws and FAA regulations may be necessary to access critical information. The article also notes that drone laws vary widely between countries, posing a problem for journalists who wish to use drones in more than one country, and that in parts of Africa and Asia, drone laws are unnecessarily restrictive, expensive, and opaque.

Did You Know?

• The first UAV specifically built for drone journalism was constructed in summer 2003 by Larry Larsen using a quadcopter platform.
• Matt Waite, founder of the Drone Journalism Lab, received a cease-and-desist notice from the FAA in 2013.
• In October 2013, a BBC news crew used a drone for the first time.
• The Professional Society of Drone Journalists (PSDJ) was founded by Matthew Schroyer and is located at DroneJournalism.org.