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Drone journalism


Drone journalism is the use of drones, or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), for journalistic purposes. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, "an unmanned aircraft is a device that is used, or is intended to be used, for flight in the air with no onboard pilot".

The use of drones for information collection in the journalism industry is still new. Several universities are testing drones in this context, namely the Drone Journalism Lab, founded in late November 2011 by Matt Waite, professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the Drone Journalism Program at the University of Missouri, and the Civic Drone Centre based at the University of Central Lancashire.

The use of drones is regulated primarily by the National Aviation Authority (NAA) of the country, although permissions from other government agencies or departments many need to be obtained. As each NAA sets its own regulations for drones they can vary widely from one country to the next, this poses a problem for journalists or media organisations who wish to use drones in more than one country. There are currently efforts to harmonise regulations international, perpetually in the European Union.

In 2014 the College of the North Atlantic produced a drone journalism code of conduct.

In 2013 the University of Oxford's Reuters Institutes for the Study of Journalism published a report on the challenges and opportunities of drones in news gathering. The University of Central Lancashire's Media Innovation Studio and Civic Drone Centre are investigating non-visual methods of gathering data for journalistic use.

The concept of drone journalism was first explored in 2002 at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies by Larry Larsen who looked at the ethical and practical use of unmanned aerial vehicles for reporting and research. Larsen taught journalists from around the world about the capabilities and possibilities of using an Unmanned aerial vehicle for investigative reporting and in the summer of 2003 built the first UAV specifically for drone journalism using a quadcopter platform streaming wireless video that was recorded in the field using an Archos AV300.


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