http://tvnewscheck.com/article/99492/designing-digital-media-into-newsrooms With the growing availability of drones to capture aerial perspectives of a news event, you’d think the days of the local TV news chopper would be numbered. But for many markets, especially major ones like New York City, having your own news helicopter on call is obligatory to covering the news. NewsCopter – […]
http://tvnewscheck.com/article/99492/designing-digital-media-into-newsrooms
With the growing availability of drones to capture aerial perspectives of a news event, you’d think the days of the local TV news chopper would be numbered.
But for many markets, especially major ones like New York City, having your own news helicopter on call is obligatory to covering the news.
NewsCopter – StreetSpotter7 from WABC-TV Creative on Vimeo.
Advanced technology like gyro-mounted cameras that can deliver rock steady pictures, and street mapping software to pinpoint the location of a story is becoming the norm in many helicopters.
There will probably be times in many markets where using a drone would be an inexpensive option to having a station chopper, but in those markets where the coverage area is broad, a helicopter is still an extremely valuable, albeit expensive, news gathering tool.
At every station where I’ve worked, they had a news chopper. I spent time inside each and every one, and it was always a thrill.
In New Orleans aboard WDSU’s chopper, we were getting beauty shots of the city and had taken one of the doors off in the back seat for the cameraman. Because of the way the wind was blowing and where the sun was coming was up, we couldn’t quite compose the shot right, so the pilot dropped down on a levy right next to the Mississippi, jumped out and took off the other door and laid it down right there.
There were two men fishing with cane poles just a few yards away and I can still see the look on their faces.
I got my first taste of flying in helicopters working part-time in college as a ground-man for a helicopter company. Mostly, I gassed them up, kept them clean and moved them in and out of the hangar.
In the evenings, the choppers had routes where they collected bags of bank receipts, with the last stop landing on top of huge bank skyscrapers in downtown Philly.
The pilots were mostly Vietnam vets, glad no one was shooting at them, but bored with the flights. To them, it was like driving a bus, and so they liked to make the chopper do extreme maneuvers to scare me.
Once, as we were flying over Veteran’s Stadium during a Phillies game, the pilot titled the chopper way over on the passenger side, and with my face pressed up against the door, asked me to see if I could catch the score.
Next week is TVNewsCheck‘s annual NewsTECHForum in New York.
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Designing Digital Media Into Newsrooms
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