The latest buzz in newsgathering technology has drawn KXTV-Channel 10 into dust-ups with the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Air Force. The ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California, recently launched its Air 10, a helicopter so sophisticated it can make out a license plate from 1,000 feet, read facial expressions on the people far below, and zoom in so close to restricted events - the president's speech, the Unabomber suspect's arrival, the spy plane's crash - that the authorities concluded the chopper must have violated airspace limits. The cherry-red Air 10 features the latest in space shuttle technology and high-resolution microwave transmission equipment. It can hover longer and bear more weight than other copters, and it carries four built-in cameras, including a rotating Gyrocam that hangs from its snout. High tech comes at a high cost, of course: the Air 10's came in at two years and $1.5 million. And in the competitive world of local television news, the Air 10 may not be unique for long. "The technogy keeps running forth in leaps and bounds," says Charles Cooper of the National Press Photographers Association in Durham, North Carolina. "Stations feel they want to put all this super gadgetry together just because the technology is there. If the Philadelphia station does it, then the Pittsburgh station feels they have to." Which leaves the question: If the sky isn't the limit for high-tech dazzle anymore, how much of the budget will be left for low-tech humans?

cjr  |  archive  |  resources  |  contact  |  search  |  subscribe