CNN strikes drone deal with FAA

[notorious63]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/01/cnn-strikes-drone-deal-with-faa-200930.html


CNN has signed an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration that will allow it to share its research about using drones for newsgathering and reporting, the network announced on Monday.
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement will allow CNN "to advance efforts to integrate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into newsgathering and reporting," a press release said.
"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,” CNN Senior Vice President David Vigilante said in a statement. “Our hope is that these efforts contribute to the development of a vibrant ecosystem where operators of various types and sizes can safely operate in the US airspace.”
“Unmanned aircraft offer news organizations significant opportunities,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “We hope this agreement with CNN and the work we are doing with other news organizations and associations will help safely integrate unmanned newsgathering technology and operating procedures into the National Airspace System.”
CNN first began studying the use of drone newsgathering in mid-2014 in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology. Monday's news is a significant breakthrough for the network, as previous efforts to use drones for newsgathering were severely limited by the FAA.

 

[notorious63]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/15/news-media-drone-research-partnership/21802707/

Ten news media companies, including Gannett, The New York Times Co. and the Associated Press, are partnering with Virginia Tech to test small unmanned drones to be used in news gathering.
In the partnership announced Thursday, the media companies and Virginia Tech — whose formal name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University — will conduct safety testing of a series of real-life scenarios in which drones will be flown in collecting photos and videos at remote sites.
Other companies participating in the program are Advance Publications, A. H. Belo, Getty Images (U.S.), NBCUniversal, E.W. Scripps, Sinclair Broadcast Group and The Washington Post.
Their announcement comes three days after CNN said it's expanding its drone-reporter research with Georgia Tech by working with the Federal Aviation Administration to speed up the work needed to commercialize the technology.

Virginia Tech is involved because it leads the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, one of six test sites established by Congress to help the FAA collect data on the use of drones in making rules that will be applied later, the coalition said.
"Unmanned aircraft systems can provide this industry a safe, efficient, timely and affordable way to gather and disseminate information and keep journalists out of harm's way," Rose Mooney, executive director of the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, said in a statement.
The FAA generally prohibits commercial use of drones, but it is working on some rules that would enable the private sector to deploy them in some settings.
The news media organizations working with Virginia Tech first gathered last year in submitting a brief to the National Transportation Safety Board regarding the case of Raphael Pirker, who was fined by the FAA for using a drone to shoot a video.
Their involvement led to discussions with the university and the eventual formation of the coalition, said Charles Tobin, an attorney with the Holland & Knight law firm that is advising the companies.
Federal rules on the integration of commercial drones in U.S. airspace need to be spelled out before the companies can advance their technical and operational plans. But the news media laws of privacy and defamation would largely apply to the use of drones, Tobin said.
"We think that the existing framework of the laws as they're applied to defamation, news gathering and privacy is all technology agnostic," he said. "There's no magic or sophisticated legal analysis anyone needs to conduct. We've got all the laws we need. So there's nothing new that the government needs to enact there. The remaining issue is to help the federal government develop sensible regulations for safe flying by journalists."
CNN has been working with researchers at Georgia Tech since last year to develop the technology for news-gathering purposes. But in signing the "Cooperative Research and Development Agreement" with the FAA, CNN and Georgia Tech's research will be folded into their partnership with the federal agency, and all parties will coordinate and share data.