Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Make a sustaining gift today to support local journalism!

3.5.14: Drone Show!

Don McCullough via flickr Creative Commons

Today on Word of Mouth, we're all about drones!  From the word itself to its real world applications, we're exploring military, model, and musical drones.

Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.

Clay Folden

  • Clay Foldenis a drone operator.  He doesn’t work for the Department of Defense or Homeland Security.  He's a photographer, and he’s one of a growing number of amateur pilots around the world flying unmanned aerial vehicles – or as we usually call them – drones. Check out his video Project Echo: Drone Across America at the bottom of this post.
WOM03052014A.mp3

Drone Debate

  • NPR’s debate series Intelligence Squared U.S. held a motion in October, 2013: “The U.S. drone program is fatally flawed.”For the motion: Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He presently writes for Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, The New York Review of Books, BBC Online, The National Interest, and several other academic and foreign affairs journals. Against the motion: General Norton Schwartz, Former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, retired.
WOM03052014B.mp3

RC Planes

  • Here in New Hampshire, a bill drafted in The House late last year would put restrictions on commercial and government use of drones in an effort to protect people's privacy. However, during public hearings for the bill, many organizations took issue with the proposed law’s broad language, saying it would limit the use of drones in journalism, environmental surveying, and recreation…in other words, model airplane enthusiasts. We were interested in learning more about these old school drone flyers and sent producer Zach Nugent to to a hobby shop in Windham to speak with members of the New Hampshire Flying Tigers RC Club.
WOM03052014C.mp3

Journalism Lab: Small Drones

  • Here to discuss the big implications of modestly-sized drones is Kashmir Hill, senior online editor at Forbes, where she covers the intersection between privacy, technology, and the law. Also with us isMatt Waite, professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and founder of the drone journalism lab. 
WOM03052014D.mp3

Drone Music

  • Despite its potential to be incredibly annoying, drone music might just have deceivingly profound implications – offering listeners a window into the nature of the universe. Even black holesemit drones that have sounded for millions of years.  Here to help convince us is Marcus Boon, an English professor at York University in Toronto – he wrote about drone music for Boing Boing.

WOM03052014E.mp3

Clay Folden's Project Echo: Drone Across America

Related Content

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.