RTDNA joins Supreme Court brief against Texas drone law that limits newsgathering

Drones are standard equipment in a TV newsroom now. They cover floods, wildfires and highway closures at a fraction of what a helicopter costs. A Texas law treats them differently depending on who is flying.

The statute makes it a crime to use a drone to capture images of private property. Real estate agents, land surveyors and hobbyists can still fly over the same property. Journalists cannot. The National Press Photographers Association and others sued, a district court threw the case out, and a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit later upheld the law. A 2022 amicus brief from the Reporters Committee, the Texas Association of Broadcasters and 27 other news organizations had already laid out the First Amendment problem.

On November 27, 2023, RTDNA and 14 other press groups and news companies asked the full 5th Circuit to rehear the case. The court denied the request in January 2024. RTDNA then joined the next step, a Supreme Court brief filed May 13, 2024 by the Texas Association of Broadcasters and 17 other media organizations, including Gannett, TEGNA, Dow Jones and Getty Images. The Court denied the petition on October 7, 2024, so the law stands.