The House of Commons of Great Britain opened to press reporting in 1787. Edmund Burke, while debating here, first used the term 'Fourth Estate' to the news media which has the profound capability to influence society by raising issues related to political and sociological issues. In recent times, with the country and the world facing the COVID-19 pandemic, the responsibility of the media houses to report authentic, informative, and useful news is of utmost prominence.

However, all we have seen in the visual media houses is swill being pushed around. With many media outlets running stories on inconsequential issues for the sake of spicing up their reports to increase their TRP, the quest to inform oneself with authentic useful information is a lost cause. Their news presentation style is much worse than the daily soap operas. Without any kind of background research or the views of an expert from the respective field, the media outlets let their imagination fly around.  

For example, a program on how the Prime Minister will rain money from helicopters, without understanding the underlying concept is the perfect example of the fallen standards of the visual news media outlets (https://www.opindia.com/2020/04/tv-channel-public-tv-helicopter-money-sky-economy-pib-false-news/).

The 'Fourth Estate' of Indian democracy is failing.

• Instead of talking to experts, the views of astrologers, political figures, entertainment industry personalities are forced upon the viewers every day. In some cases, they also provide 'knowledge' on cures for COVID-19. Unnecessary importance is given to political, and religious issues in times of a pandemic that does not discriminate.
• The most important failure of the 'Fourth Estate' is the non-existent interviews with experts from the fields of epidemiology, vaccine development, healthcare, and mathematical modeling for studying infectious diseases. Debates have never included experts, but only political personalities with their own agenda rather than information based on scientific evidence and reasoning.
• While scientists have been working to fight the fake news circulating in social media, such as the Indian Scientists Response for Covid-19 (ISRC), the visual media outlets have the deepest reach into society (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/indian-scientists-covid19-false-infomation-coronavirus/) (https://indscicov.in/). It is demoralizing to see the media houses forget the scientific community of the country while coming up with news reports.

What this petition asks for

1. A scientific panel in each news media outlet consisting of qualified individuals with sufficient background in Science and Technology or STEM as determined by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
2. News reported in the channels should have the corresponding members of the panel vet the information obtained and the names of the members who vetted the information should be disclosed during the news report.
3. There should be regular opinion pieces, interviews, and data interpretation by experts in the field. The opinions and analysis of journalists without any background in STEM should be discouraged as it adds on to the confusion.
4. The reports in these news media outlets need to be accountable, especially when it comes to medical technologies and practices as any misinformation could potentially be deadly. For this purpose, accountability has to be enforced upon the heads of the scientific panel as well as the heads of the news channels.

This petition calls out the failures of the visual news media houses and addresses the honorable Prime Minister of India, The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and The News Broadcasting Standards Authority to revise the standards of reporting in India. It is high time the Indian media houses behave responsibly towards the betterment of society and are held accountable for their actions. Please sign the petition to get the attention of the responsible authorities to take action and save the only source of information for the common public - 'The Fourth Estate'