Published November 21st, 2011 by Future Atlas
Toward UAV Journalism
Another step toward journalistic use of unmanned aerial vehicles: Polish media have been using mini-helicopters to cover protests.
As I’ve said before, it is highly likely that UAV journalism will expand to include sustained, sometimes-live coverage of otherwise inaccessible news, such as massacres in the Congolese jungle.
Facilitating conditions are likely to include:
- situations with no one in charge — Somalia or eastern Congo, for instance, where there is only nominal government authority
- places where great powers are sympathetic — even if a government objects to “illegal” use of UAVs within its borders, if powers such as the US disapprove of a regime, media organization are likely to get away with their use; the Libyan uprising is an example
It is also simply unclear how adept even great-power militaries will be at finding and destroying small, stealthy, cheap UAVs.
Some of the same issues apply to use of UAVs for human rights work.
Militaries and their governments need to devise policies for how they are going to interact with this kind of coverage; it will not be easy to prevent, and taking action against such private UAVs may have legal consequences, in addition to public relations repercussions.
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Image courtesy expertinfantry (Flickr)
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