Phoenix, AZ—This geographical
area is considered a medium size TV market.
Not every TV station here can afford a helicopter at $1,500.00 plus per
hour. Still they need plenty of quality
video and of course that means aerial coverage of newsworthy events.
Smaller TV markets have
smaller budgets and no choice but to use drones if they want aerial video.
As a former cop, long time
licensed private investigator and investigative TV news producer I have advice
to offer about drone journalism.
The video-capturing drone is
still a relatively new but very exciting technology. It’s perfectly suited for use in Phoenix,
AZ. Now there is suddenly a new job to fill in the news industry, the drone, multimedia journalist.
To do this job you need four skills, operating the drone, photography, video editing and writing news stories. Nobody said it was easy!
Police officials initially may
be hostile over the fact that we can quietly and easily observe and record them
as they perform their duties. They are
simply going to have to accept the reality.
Are the camera-armed drones really any different than helicopters being
used now?
There is one significant
difference and that is that the little drones have never been involved in a
fatal accident or even caused a remarkable injury.
Our tiny cameras have their
limitations and the altitudes we operate the best in are usually below 250
feet. Rather than fly higher adjust your
camera for wide angle. This will help avoid
possible contact with other aircraft.
I use a GoPro3+ Black Edition
camera. During daytime I set the camera
at 1080P and 60 FPS. At night I drop the
setting to 24 FPS for better light gathering.
On bright sunny days use of a neutral density filter is advised.
Breaking news brings
helicopters in from different sources.
Medical evacuation, police and news choppers routinely show up at these
events. My advice here is when they do
it’s time to discontinue flying until they leave.
Police and medical choppers
can be counted upon to fly at very low altitudes and must even land at these
scenes. Common sense dictates that you
always yield to them.
The various general aviation helicopters
are in radio communication with each other and the nearest airport control
tower. Drone operators are not and that
means they may not be aware of your drone and potential collisions are
possible.
Try to control your drone
from an area of concealment. There will
be far fewer distractions from nearby people.
In other words, don’t fly from the edge of police yellow tape or across
the street from the incident. Go around
the corner and get your video from there.
Should you have to park your
drone, work on gathering information and locating witnesses for those needed
interviews.
Always record the actual
addresses of these incidents and license plate numbers of involved
vehicles.
You really need to capture
your video and quickly get it to the TV news ENG department. You can physically deliver it to your TV news
live truck, the news department or send the video files over the Internet.
Because of the FAA regulation
confusion TV stations are understandably afraid of becoming embroiled in some
investigation. That means for now you
should never tell them the method you use to get aerial video.
You could have used a
traditional aircraft, kite or a balloon on a string to get the video. Why put some news director in the middle with
too much information?
I suspect that the FAA will
never succeed in preventing drone journalism because the right we all have to
gather news. There is no significant
history of safety issues to bring legitimate prohibitions.
None of us want to see our
drone damaged because of carelessness or inattention. That
in and of itself provides plenty of motivation us to be careful!
Public relations with your
community are essential for drone journalists.
Please spread the word that they are GPS connected and that they will
hover in place by simply letting go of the controls. Our unblemished safety record is a huge
selling point.
As for privacy invasion let
the public know that current laws adequately protect them including the laws
prohibiting stalking.
We must learn to coexist with
our neighbors and conventional aircraft.
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