Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August,
Speaker 1: readers of USA Today's website were able to watch dramatic
Speaker 1: aerial video footage of the city of Houston flooding, a
Speaker 1: nearby chemical plant immersed underwater, and other startling views of
Speaker 1: the disaster. But these eye catching clips weren't shot by
Speaker 1: a cameraman perched in a helicopter as they might have
Speaker 1: been in the past. Instead, they were captured by robotic
Speaker 1: drones equipped with cameras and piloted by operators on the ground.
Speaker 1: Ever since the Federal Aviation Administration issued new regulations in
Speaker 1: sixteen making it easier for news organizations to use the
Speaker 1: flying robots, drones have become a hot new news gathering tool.
Speaker 1: Prior to the change, a drone had to be piloted
Speaker 1: by someone trained and licensed for manned aircraft, requiring hours
Speaker 1: of cockpit experience. The new rules only require an operator
Speaker 1: to study and pass a test to be certified for drones.
Speaker 1: Some journalism eating programs are making big investments in a
Speaker 1: drone future. Matt Waite is a journalism professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Nebraska Lincoln, who heads the school's Drone journalism lab.
Speaker 1: He's trained three hundred and ninety journalists across the nation
Speaker 1: in the past year on how to use drones, and
Speaker 1: he says that probably about half of them have gone
Speaker 1: on to obtain fa A certification. He estimates that somewhere
Speaker 1: between dozens to low hundreds of US news outlets, and
Speaker 1: not just TV stations, but newspapers and radio stations too,
Speaker 1: now use unmanned aircraft in news gathering. Drone news is
Speaker 1: rising at a time when the once seemingly ubiquitous news
Speaker 1: helicopter is in decline. While definitive numbers aren't available, TV
Speaker 1: News Check and Industry Publication estimated that there were only
Speaker 1: one hundred to one hundred and twenty news schoppers still
Speaker 1: flying around the country, down from a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: before the late two thousand's economic downturn for news outlets.
Speaker 1: Drones are far less expensive news gathering tool than helicopters,
Speaker 1: which can cost three to four million dollars apiece, including
Speaker 1: the cost of cameras and mint, and consume a significant
Speaker 1: amount of fuel. O Wait said, you can buy a
Speaker 1: really good drone kit for about eighteen hundred dollars. That's
Speaker 1: about what it would cost you to fly a helicopter
Speaker 1: for an hour. He pointed out that drones are a
Speaker 1: more affordable way to supply the ever increasing demand for
Speaker 1: video clips that can be posted on websites, and that
Speaker 1: the technology is well suited for covering certain types of
Speaker 1: news events tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, massive traffic backups, stories like that,
Speaker 1: he says. We also spoke via email with Henry H. Parrott, Jr.
Speaker 1: A professor at the Chicago Kent College of Law and
Speaker 1: co author of the book Domesticating Drones, The Technology, Economics
Speaker 1: and Law of Unmanned Aircraft. He said that drones can
Speaker 1: add aerial coverage for stations and publications that couldn't afford
Speaker 1: a helicopter, even for stations who can. He said, the
Speaker 1: main advantage is that every news crew can go out
Speaker 1: with one and decide when it's coverage might be useful,
Speaker 1: and since drones are unmanned, journalists don't face the same
Speaker 1: risks that they would in news choppers. But drones also
Speaker 1: have mitations that give helicopters an advantage for other types
Speaker 1: of stories. Wait explained, for example, that the f a
Speaker 1: A prohibits operators from flying drones directly over people, which
Speaker 1: would make it difficult to get close to a massive
Speaker 1: protest rally or a celebratory parade for a sports championship win.
Speaker 1: Most drones electric battery packs only allow them to stay
Speaker 1: aloft for twenty minutes, while helicopters can stay in the
Speaker 1: air for hours at a time, and f a A
Speaker 1: regulations require that the drone helicopters on the ground maintain
Speaker 1: visual contact with the unmanned aircraft. Drones wait points out
Speaker 1: would have been ill equipped to cover what is perhaps
Speaker 1: the most famous aerial footage story ever, two hour police
Speaker 1: pursuit of football star turned murder suspect O. J. Simpson
Speaker 1: and his white Ford Bronco on the l A area
Speaker 1: of Freeway System newscopters were able to transmit live video
Speaker 1: of the chase, and it aired non stop on TV
Speaker 1: viewers screens. That's why there will probably be room for
Speaker 1: both copters and drones in journalism for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: Some news organizations, such as Jacksonville, floor A based TV
Speaker 1: station w j x T, rely on both. We spoke
Speaker 1: with the stations vice president and general manager, Bob Ellis
Speaker 1: In an email, he said, we use our sky for
Speaker 1: helicopter here in Jacksonville to cover breaking news and to
Speaker 1: get to a scene quickly, but drones oftentimes provide far
Speaker 1: better pictures and can help tell a much better story.
Speaker 1: In our coverage after Hurricane Irma, we used drone footage
Speaker 1: to show damaged areas that showed exactly what happened, far
Speaker 1: better than using a helicopter could. I believe there's a
Speaker 1: place for all these technologies to be utilized. I prefer
Speaker 1: to look at it from a content standpoint, what is
Speaker 1: the technology that helps best tell the story? Parrot adds
Speaker 1: drones won't ever completely replace news helicopters because they're so
Speaker 1: much cheaper. They will be used in some markets instead
Speaker 1: of helicopters, and stations in big markets may renegotiate their
Speaker 1: helicopter contracts over time to use less helicopter time, filling
Speaker 1: the gap with drones. In the future, news organizations may
Speaker 1: use drones not just to capture dramatic aerial images, but
Speaker 1: to gather vast amounts of data from various angles to
Speaker 1: create virtual reality simulations. Eventually, for example, news consumers may
Speaker 1: be able to put on a VR headset and walk
Speaker 1: through a three dimensional simulation of the ruins of a
Speaker 1: war torn city on the other side of the planet.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Keiger and produced
Speaker 1: by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other newsworthy topics, visit our home planet has Stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com.