In recent months, the use of helicopters to gather news has created as much news as it has gathered. In January, three men–Joe Spencer, Mark McDonough and pilot Curtis Mark Haugan–died in the crash of a chartered helicopter en route to a meatpackers strike at the George A. Hormel & Co. plant in Austin, Minn.
Spencer, a reporter for ABC News, and McDonough, his producer, lived in the Chicago area. They were working on a story for the network`s ”Good Morning America” show.
Last summer, there was a flap when local FBI officials objected to the proximity of a WLS-Ch. 7 helicopter to the site where the body of murder victim Melissa Ackerman was found. The FBI expressed concern that the prop wash from the helicopter might cause problems for investigators examining the crime scene.
Both stories stirred considerable interest in Chicago, but change in the rules and procedures involving helicopers and the news media has been brewing for several years.
In June, 1985, after consulting with CBS, ABC, the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and the National Association of
Broadcasters, the Federal Aviation Administration drew up an amendment to its General Operating and Flight Rules.
In effect, the amendment squashed the all-but-automatic exemption given to ”accredited news representatives” to fly over emergency or disaster areas. ”This is a problem we`ve been looking at for some time,” said FAA spokesman Fred Farrar in Washington. ”A couple of classic examples took place in Florida.
”In 1981, an apartment building collapsed in Cocoa Beach and rescue teams were using acoustical and sound equipment to look for survivors. Obviously, the presence of helicopters didn`t help much. And, back in `79, in Crestview, Fla., a freight train carrying chlorine gas derailed and the gas got into the atmosphere. Rescue teams were working under this cloud, and local TV station helicopters were pushing the cloud right back down on them.”
Eddie Schultz, the executive director of the RTNDA, acknowledges there have been problems with various NewsCams and SkyCams, but is concerned about the long-term impact of the amendment on television and print news-gathering. ”We don`t know whether we`re happy or not,” Schultz said. ”We`d like to see some guidelines as to the FAA procedures for enforcing the new rule, and we`re asking stations to pass along specific information–names and places and dates–so we can monitor the effect.”
Schultz declined to share any accumulated evidence of abuse by the FAA, but did raise a number of telling points.
”We want to know whose making the decisions to clear people out of the scene,” he said. ”Is there a clear hazard? Is an air scene cleared because there is a danger to life and property, or because someone is pushing their weight around?
”We are concerned that decisions will be made by a government employee who has been asked for something by a state policeman or a county sheriff and has put in the order because they`re both government employes.”
”When we took the comments from the various news organizations,” said Farrar, ”it became clear that what they wanted was a warning system. They wanted to know what we thought of the situation, then have the option of making up their own minds. Obviously, what they wanted was less restrictive;
we didn`t think it was adequate.”
Schultz insists that his organization is not about to wrap itself in the 1st Amendment on this issue, and credits the FAA with moving judiciously toward its new policy.
The issue of access to the news is one that will not go away, however, even when it is applied to a sensational media toy, a piece of hardware that is too often used to ferry Santa Claus to the local shopping center. Santa is not a 1st Amendment matter.
”People rely on news from independent sources, not from the government,” Schultz said. ”We`re talking about access. The role of the media is to find out as much as it can.
”In television, pictures you get from the ground are always better than pictures you get from the air. But there are situations like a flood where aerial pictures of the scope of the damage can be important. The news media shouldn`t be automatically cut off because it`s easier for the guy on the ground to make it a flight-restricted area.”
While the FAA and the RTNDA continue to circle one another and exchange pleasantries, the question of necessary or unnecessary restriction is one that could wind up, sooner or later, in a federal court.
