Thai newspapers covering ongoing protests in Bangkok have adopted a new reporting tool in recent weeks: small, camera-equipped helicopters they’re using to capture images of massive crowds.
Large political protests are nothing new to Thailand. Waves of demonstrators have taken to the streets in recent years, both to support and denounce controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies. Thaksin was overthrown in a military coup in 2006; yesterday as many as 100,000 protesters rallied in the biggest demonstration since 2010 to demand the ouster of his sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. On Monday crowds of demonstrators even forced their way into the Finance Ministry.
The media coverage of Thailand’s various political upheavals has remained conventional since Thaksin left office, with traditional accounts filling newspapers and breathless reports broadcast on the country’s many partisan TV stations. But English language dailies The Nation and The Bangkok Post, among other papers, have been running aerial, panoramic photos of the demonstrators, providing a perspective on the rallies that has been lacking until now.
The Nation‘s Web site today, for example, features aerial images of a gathering on Sunday in the Thai capital. In The Nation‘s photo, above, people congregate at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument; one of the helicopter’s red wheels is visible in the upper right corner of the photo.
The Nation says the helicopters and their cameras cost between about $2,500 and $6,200, and require one staff member to fly the contraption while another snaps the photos. While not exactly inexpensive, the UAS are certainly cheaper than using standard helicopters.