Los Angeles, CA—Before I
share my thoughts I want you to see what a seemingly thoughtful journalist,
Matt Waite has to say about the use of drones for Electronic News Gathering or
ENG. It’s important that you first watch
his video presentation. My response is below the video.
Okay, Waite made a really melodramatic example of anecdote from his reporting past to make a point. It was a really unfair and simplistic overstatement
of a highly unusual situation he once encountered.
Waite’s dramatic example
is one we all can resolve by simply keeping enough distance between the drone
and the grieving woman that Waite described. Only the most soulless bastard
would dare to bring a buzzing drone into that poor woman’s face!
Additionally, Waite unleashed
his little drone inside the theater where he’s speaking and the natural
acoustics there exaggerated the multi-rotor drone’s noise substantially.
At 40 or 50 feet outdoors
that noise is barely noticeable. Animals
will hear it much better than humans.
Actually is it substantially quieter that any typical news
helicopter. We need to first consider
the current ethics of a news helicopter ENG crew for comparison.
Helicopters make much more noise and
everyone knows they are probably using very expensive high definition telephoto
cameras because they are!
The little drones are much
less intrusive or noisy than helicopters unless and until you begin to invade
someone’s personal space. Frankly doing that would interfere with obtaining
video that you’re there to capture.
I must of course, beg the
question, would invading the personal space of a rapist, murder or armed robber
with a drone causing the termination of a horrific act be somehow unethical?
It may not be the job of
journalists to interfere with crime but we must remember that we all have a much
higher duty when human life is at stake.
Or is it somehow more virtuous or ethical to give our content viewers a
voyeuristic view of a horrible crime we may have easily thwarted?
News directors and journalism
professors will be struggling these drone issues just like they did when the
first helicopters were utilized for ENG decades ago.
The job of the ENG
Newsdronies will be to get the images.
Most of the important “ethical” decisions will be made inside TV control
rooms and editing bays.
Live shots are different and
everyone involved in newsgathering and broadcasting must consider the safety of
hostages and cops. A ten-second delay
solves many problems inherent or pulling out for a wider shot may be what’s
called for. Simple common sense must be
applied.
Actually drone propeller
noise can be greatly reduced by using special, balanced carbon fiber propellers
instead of the plastic ones that come with most mini-drones.
How close to the news-making
event is too close for an ENG drone?
Obviously bringing a drone within 20 feet of people will change their
behavior. If someone were being viciously
attacked would that drone distraction slow or stop the crime? Could it also give a victim a chance to flee
and survive? Is that somehow a bad thing?
I can’t help but think about
the TV news helicopter video shot during the Rodney King Riot in L.A. That image gathering provided a solid
identification of the person trying to kill truck driver Reginald Denny in that
shockingly savage attack. As a result of
the images gathered the offender was quickly captured by police and removed
from our streets.
Those people involved in news
reporting really don’t need new drone ethics.
They simply need to apply the old ones to the current technology.
The drones belong in ENG more
than the helicopters we’ve grown accustomed to seeing at newsworthy events. Technology now has provided a gift that will
give us better news video at a fraction of the cost or danger of utilizing conventional helicopters.
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