>
Cable News Network (CNN) has advanced plans to commence the use of drones for news gathering and reporting. The network on Monday announced that it has entered a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) with America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to step up efforts to integrate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into the newsgathering and reporting process.
In the words of CNN Senior Vice President David Vigilante, “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.
“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.”
CNN’s pressroom blog quotes FAA Administrator, Michael Huerta as saying: “Unmanned aircraft offer news organizations significant opportunities.
“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 Worldwide is a group of more than 20 news and information services across cable, satellite, radio, wireless devices and the Internet in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.