Journalist toolbox welcomes a new tool

If you scrolled through some news outlets today, you probably saw a story or two about drones and the government, drones and the feds — something along those lines.

That’s because today the FAA announced drone operators, yes the recreational ones, are now going to be required to register their drone.

Here’s the announcement from CBS, NBC , CNN and there are many more.

Somewhat of a coincidence, journalists and news organizations have to follow drone rules from the FAA too.

You may have watched a story recently on a nightly newscast with drone footage. In fact, if you are a frequent NBC news viewer, like myself, you probably watched a story and not even realized the use of drone footage. You probably just thought to yourself — wow, how crazy is that?! NBC is using drones more often, and a Florida station even announced they will be using drones.

So what is a drone to a news story? I like to think of it as another way to tell a story, another way viewers can get a better look, a better understanding.

I thought about the stories I watch and read about, and thought about the ways I think drones could have been used. And, to be honest, a lot of the stories I thought about, I went and searched, and realized they were using drones.

When it comes to overseas reporting, in many countries, the drone use is incredible. It gives viewers and even better perspective and look at places they will never travel to.

But on a lighter note, let’s look at a story a local cable news station, NECN, did about the first ski mountains opening. As I watched the story air, I immediately thought to myself how much greater it would have looked, if shot with a drone.

Start a package with a drone shot of the empty mountains as the sun rises, then cross cut edit to a shot of the mountain packed with the skiers— now that would be beautiful.Then follow a skier from an aerial view and you have yourself an angle that will stand out.

Although this is certainly not a hard news story, people are still going to want to see the conditions if you are telling a story about the first mountains opening for the season. An aerial view will allow viewers to really see the mountain and give them a better view, something like this video I found from a simple google search. Although some of these are shots from a GoPro on a stick, there are a number of drone shots as well.

While this would help make the story more attractive and interesting to viewers, I think the best use of drones come with investigative and international news, when drones capture footage nobody can.

I’m excited to watch the ways news outlets make use of this new tool.