Four Corners (1961)
Four Corners is Australia's longest-running investigative journalism/current affairs television program. Broadcast on ABC1 in Australia, it premiered on 19 August 1961 and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021. Founding producer Robert Raymond and his successor Allan Ashbolt did much to set the ongoing tone of the program. Based on the Panorama concept, the program addresses a single issue in depth each week, showing either a locally produced program or a relevant documentary from overseas. The program has won many awards for investigative journalism, and broken many high-profile stories. A notable early example of this was the show's epoch-making 1962 exposé on the appalling living conditions endured by many Aboriginal Australians living in rural New South Wales.
-
Episode 1 - Willie Brigitte
Release Date: 2004-02-09Allegations have swirled around Willie Brigitte ever since his discreet deportation from Australia and his much-publicised arrest in France in October 2003.
-
Episode 2 - Lords Of The Forests
Release Date: 2004-02-16Ticky Fullerton looks at the management of Tasmania's forests and how one timber company enjoys extraordinary political support for its operations.
-
Episode 3 - In the Firing Line
Release Date: 2004-02-23Fuelled by a cocktail of drugs, armed robberies are growing more violent and unpredictable.
-
Episode 4 - Arafat Investigated
Release Date: 2004-03-01Why has Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - once feted at the White House but now holed up in his West Bank headquarters - become such an outcast?
-
Episode 5 - The Speed Trap
Release Date: 2004-03-08How police laid a trap to catch drug dealers but instead found themselves entangled in a web of corruption allegations.
-
Episode 6 - Ethiopia: A Journey with Michael Buerk
Release Date: 2004-03-15Michael Buerk returns to Ethiopia 20 years after first alerting the world to the Ethiopian famine.
-
Episode 7 - Tarnished Gold
Release Date: 2004-03-22Are Australia's sports bosses surrendering to the drug cheats?
-
Episode 8 - Riot In Redfern
Release Date: 2004-03-29What really happened that night in the tiny Redfern community .
-
Episode 9 - A Crime of Insanity
Release Date: 2004-04-05Troubling questions arise when the legal and psychiatric worlds collide.
-
Episode 10 - Lost In Translation
Release Date: 2004-04-12Are Australians hitching a ride on China's economic juggernaut?
-
Episode 11 - Killers
Release Date: 2004-04-19A report on the conditions that made the violence in Rwanda possible.
-
Episode 12 - The Nuclear Bazaar
Release Date: 2004-04-26A special report on the frightening trade in nuclear secrets.
-
Episode 13 - Fair Game?
Release Date: 2004-05-03Allegations of sexual violence have engulfed some of Australia's top AFL footballers and their clubs.
-
Episode 14 - Rich Man, Poor Man
Release Date: 2004-05-10The fight between Australia and East Timor over billion dollar oil and gas interests.
-
Episode 15 - Al Qaeda Family
Release Date: 2004-05-17The inside story of the family that lived and trained with Osama Bin Laden.
-
Episode 16 - Till Debt Us Do Part
Release Date: 2004-05-24Where will the credit binge end for the many thousands of Australians in debt?
-
Episode 17 - The Taking of Logan Marr
Release Date: 2004-05-31Under what circumstances should a child be taken from its birth parents?
-
Episode 18 - Chain of Command
Release Date: 2004-06-07The story behind what may endure as defining images of war in Iraq.
-
Episode 19 - Corruption Inc.
Release Date: 2004-06-14Corruption spreads from state police forces into the Australian Crime Commission.
-
Episode 20 - A Blind Eye
Release Date: 2004-06-21Is the RSPCA turning a blind eye to cruelty for the benefit of commercial interests?
-
Episode 21 - The Clinton Interview
Release Date: 2004-06-28Bill Clinton defends his record and tells how his public and private lives clashed.
-
Episode 22 - A Case To Answer
Release Date: 2004-07-05How the justice system failed star swim coach Scott Volkers and the women he was accused of sexually molesting.
-
Episode 23 - A Dangerous Business
Release Date: 2004-07-12How one company’s obsession with the bottom line left a trail of death and dismemberment among its workers.
-
Episode 24 - Worst of the Worst?
Release Date: 2004-07-19Four Corners investigates the story behind Mamdouh Habib's incarceration at the notorious prison Guantanamo Bay .
-
Episode 25 - Training Day
Release Date: 2004-07-26Chris Masters talks to bent cops and police chiefs around Australia about the painful costs of corruption, the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures and the need for constant vigilance.
-
Episode 26 - A Bitter Pill?
Release Date: 2004-08-02Jonathan Holmes investigates the cost to our subsidised pharmaceutical scheme since Australia signed the Free Trade Agreement.
-
Episode 27 - The Secret Agent
Release Date: 2004-08-09This expose reveals the truth behind what the BNP has been telling the public in recent years, as it has tried to shed its image of a far-right, racist party.
-
Episode 28 - Losing the Children
Release Date: 2004-08-16Four Corners tells the story of the Dalton family breakdown in the context of the Government's recent initiatives to reform the Family Court system, and the rising political influence of men's groups.
-
Episode 29 - The Plea
Release Date: 2004-08-23"The Plea" examines the cases a jury will never get to hear and asks the question, is the plea bargain undermining an entire legal system?
-
Episode 30 - After Saddam
Release Date: 2004-08-30What do Iraqis think about the war and its aftermath?
-
Episode 31 - Doctoring the Figures
Release Date: 2004-09-06From outright fraud to allegations of cover up … and those who simply bend the rules.
-
Episode 32 - Beating the Black Dog
Release Date: 2004-09-13Five Australians tell their story of beating depression; the 'black dog" affecting one in five Australians.
-
Episode 33 - Run For Your Life
Release Date: 2004-09-20Four Corners presents the incredible journey of four young men .
-
Episode 34 - Island Raiders
Release Date: 2004-09-27How can one island nation lose a two billion dollar fortune in the space of twenty years?
-
Episode 35 - The Contenders
Release Date: 2004-10-04Liz Jackson follows the leaders' trails during an election campaign that's gone from truth in government, to billion dollar give-aways and old fashioned fear tactics - as the parties battle to win over middle Australia.
-
Episode 36 - Battleground State
Release Date: 2004-10-08Reporter Jonathan Holmes takes us on a colourful journey through the battleground state of Ohio during the US Elections.
-
Episode 37 - City Limits
Release Date: 2004-10-18Once we had enough water to waste.
-
Episode 38 - A Baby To Save Our Son
Release Date: 2004-10-25Jamie Whitaker had been created to save the life of his brother Charlie, who suffers from Diamond-Blackfan anaemia, DBA, a form of bone marrow failure.
-
Episode 39 - Trust and Betrayal
Release Date: 2004-11-01A story of spies, counterspies, double agents and defections as Andrew Fowler reveals the betrayal inside one of Australia’s secret intelligence agencies.
-
Episode 40 - Blood Brothers
Release Date: 2004-11-08An exclusive story following a brave little boy’s fight to be cured.
-
Episode 41 - What the Children Saw
Release Date: 2004-11-15In a place where they should have felt safest, the children of Beslan were targeted in an act of barbarism.
-
Episode 42 - 2004: In Review
Release Date: 2004-11-242004 will be remembered chiefly for international issues, primarily events in Iraq: including the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal; as well as the continued threat of terrorism. We also faced crucial elections both at home and in the United States.