Drone Journalism

‘Dronalists’: the Future of Journalism

July 23, 2021
1:28 pm

Introduction: An Aerial Perspective

Drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), have opened up new opportunities across many industries. In our last article ‘The emergence of the Industrial drone industry’ we explored the implications and potential of drones across the business world ranging from agriculture to inspections to construction. Similarly the revolutionizing nature of drones is taking flight in journalism.

Drone journalism refers to the use of drones for news gathering purposes. Drone photos and videos lend a unique aerial perspective to everyday news coverage, allowing journalists to make their reports more insightful and innovative.

In the digital age where newsrooms staffs are growing smaller, in part by being affected by social media outlets, drones offer a more cost efficient and budget-friendly form of footage gathering. Helicopters which newsrooms traditionally use can be very expensive. Drones offer safer coverage of natural disasters, such as the widespread fires, floods or earthquakes.

But the saved costs are not the only reason why drones are so useful. Due to their unmanned nature it makes capturing footage of chemical factory accidents and toxic spills safer.

One example of this is where CBS, an American commercial broadcast television and radio network, have used drones to capture aerial footage of Chernobyl, which has been largely abandoned after a nuclear plant explosion in 1986.

It goes beyond photography and surveillance though Matthew Schroyer, a data journalist, wrote in a Google Group post about drone journalism, saying he could see the technology being used to take water or air samples or to scan for topographical data to make assessments about industrial impact on the environment.

A significant concern with the use of UAS for journalistic reporting is the potential for invading people’s privacy and brings forward a crucial question as to whether individuals have the right to expect privacy when their picture is being taken from an aerial perspective. Where does the height begin to change the validity of privacy laws for example what happens when you reach 100kms above the ground and question the ethics considerations if we bring the surrounding satellites and the images they take into the conversation. What are the ethical boundaries of news-gathering with satellites in space?

A GROWING FIELD

However a tool of great power can also be misused. There are growing concerns over how drones could be used to break privacy laws and questions how drones could be used for surveillance as well. The resounding answer from the Drone Journalism community thus far is to address these issues internally by creating ethical codes on what ethical drone journalism is. Drone usage and how to follow the rules and regulations attached to piloting a drone are beginning to emerge in Journalism courses around the world.

ORGANISATIONS BEGINNING TO HANDLE THIS WORLD

DroneJournalism.org is one of the bodies seeking to create a drone journalism code of ethics, including appeals for use of drones only when there is no safer method of procuring the information needed. This code does hold, however, that violation of state laws and FAA regulations may be necessary in order to access critical information.

Another example is at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where the Drone Journalism Lab was established back in 2011. Professor Matt Waite established the Drone Journalism Lab in November 2011 to be part of their broad digital journalism and innovation strategy.

Professor Matt Waite teaches how drones could be used for reporting. Waite’s lab recognizes the fears of what drone journalism could become. “If drones are to be a tool for journalists, they’re going to have to answer questions and criticisms like these,” his site states.

The Drone Journalism lab is a place where students and faculty will build drone platforms, use them in the field and research the ethical, legal and regulatory issues involved in using pilot-less aircraft to do journalism.

They believe as journalism is evolving rapidly so must journalism education evolve with it. They encourage teaching new tools and storytelling strategies while remaining true to the core principles and ethics of journalism.

Journalists are increasingly faced with two problems: a growing appetite for unique online video in an environment of decreased budgets; and restricted or obstructed access to stories ranging from disaster coverage to protests.

“Our aim is to get beyond hobby-grade equipment and to establish what options are available and workable to produce high-quality video journalism using various types of UAVs and camera setups.”

David Vigilante, Senior Vice President of CNN

“We need to have the ability to fly these things and teach our students how to do this the right way. We will do that. They will be responsible. And those are the kinds of journalists and storytellers that you want to have flying these things.”

Bill Allen, Assistant Professor of Science Journalism, University of Missouri

DRONE JOURNALISM IN AFRICA

africanDRONE

In Africa the africanDRONE was formally established as a non-profit organization in South Africa in 2018. AfricanDRONE is an organization of drone pilots, journalists, enthusiasts and advocates which seeks to encourage the use of drones in media and journalism.

It has its own ethics and operations manual (adapted from the University of Nebraska Drone Journalism Lab) and provides a repository of legal information on drone laws in various African countries. africanDRONE has worked with major international media houses across Africa, Europe and the USA.

Of the many obstacles the organisation faces only one of them are the legal obstacles. The process of getting equipment is prohibitively expensive, skilled pilots are still scarce and markets still favour large internationals over local operators and there is lastly the safety concern. africanDRONE aims to make it easier for African drone pioneers to do more, for less, while producing better results.

africanDRONE seeks to empower the drone pioneers already living on the continent, by networking them together into a self-help association that can share resources and knowledge. In addition, they aim to be a collective muscle to get better access to markets (for work), better prices on hardware / software / insurance (through collective bargaining), and share resources (for everything from drones to data-crunching computer servers).

africanDRONE focuses on empowering local initiatives or thought-leaders by investing skills, resources and opportunities into them so they can thrive through drone journalism. Their goal is to support the evolution of a vibrant and diverse drone ecosystem in every country in Africa.

The founding members having been pioneering civic drones in Africa since 2012, when African skyCAM established the continent’s first newsroom-based drone team in Kenya.

They have helped shape global discourse, as demonstrated by the 10 million interactions triggered around the world by Unequal Scenes’ footage of urban inequality, by pioneering new ways to fight environmental degradation, led by BlastTracker’s work around blast fishing and, by changing the face of disaster management and response through UhuruLab’s mapping work for the World Bank and Tanzanian government.

They explain on their website how drones can go where humans cannot, giving journalists cheaper and safer access to conflict zones and other hazardous areas, from the epicentre of a natural disaster, to conflict zones, to industry’s toxic no-man lands.

They implore the need to find the right team and equipment as well as the need for expert systems and technicians to crunch the resulting data or footage.

After the story’s ready, africanDRONE helps journalists find an audience both in Africa and beyond. They work regularly with the continent’s largest news platform, News24, as well as regional powerhouses such as the Nation Media Group and PUNCH.

Their members’ work also regularly gets published in leading publications across the world, from the New York Times and Newsweek Magazine in the U.S., to the Guardian and the BBC in the U.K., to Der Spiegel and Die Welt in Germany.

AfricanDRONES has outlines for Country Specifics laws, permits and customs for filming in Africa in Botswana , Ethiopia , Kenya , Namibia , Nigeria , Rwanda , South Africa , Swaziland , Tanzania , Uganda and Zimbabwe

HISTORY OF AERIAL VIDEOGRAPHY

When looking to the future it is important to look back at history and the lessons that are there.

The use of aerial videography in journalism can be traced back to 1958 where a Los Angeles-based local TV station, KTLA used a modified a Bell 47 – the iconic single rotor single-engine light helicopter – and kitted it up with broadcast equipment. This was the first Telecopter – a television news helicopter. This unique vantage point empowered the local TV channel and resulted in high advertising revenue and soon it changed the nature of TV reporting with every TV station wanting to have access to helicopters. This electronic news gathering transformed journalism at the time and now we are entering a similarly new era.

PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNALISM AND A GUIDELINE FOR FUTURE DRONE ETHICAL CONCERNS

When we consider the growing field of Drone Journalism there are ethical considerations and questions that emerge. Drones are vetted through strict and rigid rules and regulations in part to protect citizens’ privacy as well as fall in line with various governing bodies.

Merriam-Webster defines ‘ethics’ as, ‘the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.’

Photojournalism what could be argued as the forefather of Drone journalism. It is a visual form of journalism that uses images and footage which is then gathered, edited, and presented as news material for publication, in order to tell news stories. It is a more established form of journalism which has struggled with the ethical conduct of visual journalism since its inception.

In terms of ethics in photojournalism the National Press Photographers Association’s Code of Ethics reads, in part: ‘Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding. Photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.’

Photojournalists are held to a standard of ethics. Each publication has their own set of rules that governs how representation of images to the public is handled.

Examples of this can include: how a photographer should act while taking pictures, what they can and can’t photograph, and whether and how an image can be altered in the darkroom or on the computer. Source: UKEssays. (November 2018). Ethical Issues In Photojournalism Media Essay.

It is a difficult line to balance ethical capturing of footage and still documenting difficult situations like riots, wars, protests and most recently the global pandemic.

“Ethics is always an interesting discussion and debate in class,” says Paul Egglestone, “as we start to ask about the differences between using a drone to take an aerial view of something versus say using a step ladder and a long lens. We’ve all seen those shots looking down at festivals for example — they are mostly illegal as things stand.”

Paul Egglestone, owner of Media Innovation Studio at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston UK

The new technology hasn’t necessarily raised new ethical dilemmas, although it’s brought existing ones into sharper focus. When it comes to equipping the next generation of journalists, Egglestone sees the use of drones remaining as a relatively specialist area, albeit one with growing interest.

“It’s another tool in the box. I don’t think we are going to approach the time when everyone carries a drone just in case, but there will certainly be specialist camera crews that acquire a drone for themselves.”

Paul Egglestone

Professor Matt Waites, of The Drone Journalism Lab, sums it up well, “We keep asking ourselves: Is this a new ethical problem, or an old ethical problem with new technology?”

PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

So let us bring this closer to home. Here is an example of South African Photographic journalism and how in the 1990s four photojournalists emerged known as “the Bang-Bang Club”. They used their photographic journalism to shed light on the atrocities of Apartheid to the world. Their name was coined from an article published in the South African magazine, Living. They became well known for documenting the fighting and unrest in the townships of South Africa and revealed to the world the what was happening under the apartheid rule.

The photographic journalism of the Bang-Bang Club contributed to the worldwide condemnation and sanctions that ultimately brought on the collapse of the apartheid government. The surviving members went on to document struggles all around the world including Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, Yuguslavia, Afgahanistan and Sudan.

“Good pictures. Tragedy and violence certainly make powerful images. It is what we get paid for. But there is a price extracted with every such frame: some of the emotion, the vulnerability, the empathy that makes us human, is lost every time the shutter is released.”

Greg Marinovich, The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War

A more recent example of this in South African drone journalism was when a viral photo was taken by Neill Kropman during the gender-based-violence protest in Cape Town in 2019.

The Photo was taken over what was speculated as a national key point and was reported to possibly be a violation of a NOTAM, which restricted flights over Parliament. Business Insider reported that the South African Civil Aviation Authority said that flying the drone in this airspace could mean jail time or a R50,000 fine. They further reported that the police could also charge the pilot under anti-terror laws.

The viral photo captured the immense scale of the 10 000 people that gathered to demand change from government, in the wake of a series of brutal rapes and murders that brought to light the extent of gender-based violence in South Africa.

The drone that took it may also have violated a formal notice (coded A3365/19 NOTAMNQ) that restricted any flying within a 1.82 kilometre radius of the Cape Town International Convention Centre that week in September 2019 during the protests, where several heads of state attended the World Economic Forum.

There are no news sources over the outcome of the SACAA’s investigation but there was an out pour of support that the photo captured the urgency and scale of the movement. It was shown on multiple news outlets across the world. Was this more okay due to it being done by an amateur? And is the fact that anti-terrorist possibilities thrown around an over reaction?

Conclusion

Drone journalism is become an essential storytelling tool for news rooms and journalists across the world.

‘Dronalism’ is still just beginning and will probably be followed by questions over ethics through out its existence and will be kept in check by its own community. Similarly to how Drone organisations like the SACAA hold its pilots and safe drone operations accountable in South Africa.

“[J]ournalistic truth” is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information. Even in a world of expanding voices, accuracy is the foundation upon which everything else is built — context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate. The truth, over time, emerges from this forum.”

- “A Statement of Shared Principles,” Committee of Concerned Journalists, Washington, D.C.

Balancing limitations and laws, protecting citizens privacy as well as pursing journalistic truth and bring forward much needed reporting will be a fine line that Drone Journalism will need to travel.

However just like how the modified a Bell 47 single rotor single-engine light helicopter became the first Telecopter and transformed journalism we are now entering a similarly new era. The heights and limits of Drone Journalism are just beginning and we have a front row seat to watch.