Three and a half years ago, journalist-turned educator Matt Waite won a $50,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to kickstart a fledgling drone program at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dubbed the “Drone Journalism Lab” by Waite (a sometimes Poynter contributor ), the program sought to establish an early foothold among the small but growing cohort of journalists using unmanned aircraft for reporting. Within months, Waite and his students did just that. They built and flew drones to survey the surrounding landscape from up above. One project offered a birds-eye view of a drought-stricken Nebraska landscape enduring one of its worst dry spells since the Dust Bowl. Then he got the letter. In the summer of 2013, Waite opened a cease-and-desist notice from the Federal Aviation Administration, which had taken notice of his activities and demanded the drones be grounded. Nebraska’s lab and a similar effort at The University of Missouri had unknowingly run afoul of the agency’s guidelines, which prohibit use of drones for commercial purposes without special permission. Despite urging from associates who suggested bending the rules a little, Waite and his students followed the FAA’s directions. “When you’re a state university, you can’t exactly thumb your nose […]
