The droning question

We are reprinting this article of Sarah Hartley originally titled “Drones in Media Bring New Perspectives, Ethical Issues,” originally published in Contributoria and reprinted with permission on the website of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

DRONES. Even the word has something of menace about it. A mechanical wasp, hovering with some sort of malevolent intent, operated by remote distant operators with unknown levels of compassion. Or at least that’s how TV shows such asHomeland portray the armed type of drone, a weapon of war that has little in common with these new tools of journalism aside from a shared abbreviated and catchy name. The regular use of the term to describe flying cameras probably owes more to the macho eagerness of the journalism world to adopt a military-like word than it is an accurate description of the technology.

Click on the photo to continue reading the article on the GIJN website.

Photo from GIJN website