At the National Association of Broadcaster's conference, a vast array of drones for sale were surrounded by curious onlookers in radio and tv management. Maybe not for purely business reasons. Let's face it, they fly a lot like remote controlled miniature planes that people operate above one hill at my favorite park every weekend.
Rachel Maddow flew one on her show. When not killing people, drones are fun.
But can they really be useful for covering local news?
This week's case study shows that drones are now, in fact, inexpensive enough for local media to buy and use - if they know how. The experiments funded by the University of Missouri show the strengths and weaknesses of the new technology:
Strengths
• Basically drones are just another camera angle on a story. So media can take aerial shots without a helicopter and insert them into a multi-media story or video shot list.
• Drones can be necessary to tell a story when conditions are dangerous, remote or beautiful. Think forest fires, environmental issues and nature shots.
• Relative expensive is much less than a helicopter/pilot team.
Weaknesses
• Still hard to fly. The operators need at least a couple weeks of training actually using the drones.
• Only useful in rural areas. FAA still says drones must stay 400 feet from populated areas. So if a fire is in the city, drones are not an option.
• While shots can be beautiful, they can also be mind-numbingly dull. Know exactly what you want to shoot and why, is drone protocol, according to project director, Scott Pham's.
• A typical news story may not be important enough, or last long enough, to send in the drone for an extra aerial shot. Translate: How many forest fires are there in your area, anyway? Think using drones for longer features with more time to put together.
So while not nearly as useful as they could be if available in the city, for example, we still suggest having a drone on hand, and an evangelist in the newsroom. The main drone advantage for local newsrooms right now may just be that they are cool. With workloads heavy, a little levity can go a long way. Why not purchase few expensive toys that reporters can play with on the weekends, preparing for a future that none of us can see?
The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and MediaExecsTech, developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine, to showcases perspectives from around the world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.