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.
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Episode 1 - A Good Death
Release Date: 2010-02-08Four Corners follows four brave Australians as they come to the end of their lives, and the people determined to give them a good death.
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Episode 2 - Breaking Point
Release Date: 2010-02-15Will Australia's flawed disability support system be reformed in time to save the families now at breaking point?
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Episode 3 - The Warlord's Tune
Release Date: 2010-02-22A harrowing documentary that tells how thousands of young boys in Afghanistan are now being hunted and groomed to become sex slaves.
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Episode 4 - The State of Play
Release Date: 2010-03-01The inside story of the battle to control Australian tennis.
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Episode 5 - Scientology: The Ex-Files
Release Date: 2010-03-08Former members of the Church give a chilling portrait of life inside the organisation.
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Episode 6 - The Authentic Mr Abbott
Release Date: 2010-03-15A revealing profile of the man who wants to be the next Prime Minister of Australia.
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Episode 7 - Mexico's Drug Wars
Release Date: 2010-03-22A horrifying account of the brutal war that's raging in the towns that dot the border between Mexico and the United States.
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Episode 8 - Gypsy Child Thieves
Release Date: 2010-03-29The harrowing story of the children who are forced into a life of crime on the streets in order to survive.
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Episode 9 - Over the Edge
Release Date: 2010-04-05The harrowing story of the therapist whose work led some patients to believe they'd committed or been the victim of shocking sexual crimes.
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Episode 10 - A Dirty Business
Release Date: 2010-04-12How the people of a once picturesque valley found themselves surrounded by coalmines, dust and toxic chemicals, while the State Government ignores their pleas for help.
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Episode 11 - Chinese Whispers
Release Date: 2010-04-19Four Corners looks at events surrounding the arrest of mining executive Stern Hu and the tensions now involved in doing business with China.
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Episode 12 - A Lethal Miscalculation
Release Date: 2010-04-26The story behind the Federal Government's multi-billion dollar home insulation scheme debacle.
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Episode 13 - Chocolate: The Bitter Truth
Release Date: 2010-05-03An undercover investigation, spanning three continents, that exposes the way children are trafficked and used to produce the raw materials that drive a multi-billion dollar industry.
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Episode 14 - Access Denied
Release Date: 2010-05-10Quentin McDermott looks at the potential impact of the Government’s mandatory filtering system.
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Episode 15 - In a Strange Land
Release Date: 2010-05-17The story of a young woman's confronting journey back to the war-ravaged country of her birth.
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Episode 16 - Dirty Money
Release Date: 2010-05-24In this joint investigation with The Age newspaper, Four Corners reveals how the central pillar of Australia's financial system, the Reserve Bank, became ensnared in an international bribery scandal.
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Episode 17 - South Africa's Lost Innocence
Release Date: 2010-05-31South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world, and almost half the victims are children.
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Episode 18 - What's Yours Is Mine
Release Date: 2010-06-07How the government's attempt to introduce a resource super profits tax began a war with mine bosses, split the business community and may yet derail Labor's attempt to win the next Federal election.
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Episode 19 - One Shitty Deal
Release Date: 2010-06-14A story that reveals how a toxic cocktail of investment packages helped poison the retirement funds of hundreds of Australians.
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Episode 20 - Rush to Riches
Release Date: 2010-06-21How an attempt to negotiate a deal to create a state of the art resources development turned sour, pitting Indigenous people against each other and some of them against the State Government.
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Episode 21 - Dancing with the Devil
Release Date: 2010-06-28This story documents the intersecting lives of three men - a cop, a drug dealer and a preacher - as they struggle to survive on the backstreets of Rio de Janeiro.
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Episode 22 - A Careful War - Part 1
Release Date: 2010-07-05Chris Masters delivers the first of two ground level reports giving a soldier's-eye view of the bloody war being waged against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
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Episode 23 - A Careful War - Part 2
Release Date: 2010-07-12The story of Australian troops as they head into unchartered territory, trying to win the faith and trust of a brutalised people in conflict-torn Afghanistan.
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Episode 24 - A Dog Act
Release Date: 2010-07-19A forensic investigation of the killing of Kwementyaye Ryder by five white, local youths from Alice Springs.
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Episode 25 - Heart of Darkness
Release Date: 2010-07-26The story of a young woman's search to understand the shocking conflict that has laid waste the country where she was born.
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Episode 26 - Smugglers' Paradise
Release Date: 2010-08-02An expose of people smugglers and their networks in Indonesia.
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Episode 27 - Hidden Voices
Release Date: 2010-08-09The story of an Australian town that holds a lesson for each and every person who's been touched by mental illness.
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Episode 28 - Whatever it Takes
Release Date: 2010-08-16A critical look at one of the closest fought Federal elections in two decades, assessing the parties, their policies and the two people who want to lead the country.
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Episode 29 - Overdose
Release Date: 2010-08-23The story of the greatest financial crisis you will ever see...
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Episode 30 - Crime Incorporated
Release Date: 2010-08-30A joint ABC Four Corners/Fairfax investigation that takes us inside major Australian organised crime networks.
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Episode 31 - Body Corporate
Release Date: 2010-09-06The story of the high stakes battle that will decide who owns your body and the key biological building blocks that make you the person that you are.
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Episode 32 - After the Deluge
Release Date: 2010-09-09The story of the high stakes battle that will decide who owns your body and the key biological building blocks that make you the person that you are.
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Episode 33 - Return to the Rainbow Warrior
Release Date: 2010-09-20This week on Four Corners, "Return to the Rainbow Warrior", a story that attempts to finally get to the truth of a murderous attack that New Zealanders describe as an act of state sponsored terrorism.
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Episode 34 - Oxy: The Hidden Epidemic
Release Date: 2010-09-23This week on Four Corners, Oxy: The Hidden Epidemic - a story that reveals how the misuse of powerful prescription drugs is creating a new generation of addicts.
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Episode 35 - The Deal
Release Date: 2010-10-04The inside story of the historic deal that created Australia's first national minority government in seven decades.
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Episode 36 - Secret Iraq - Insurgency
Release Date: 2010-10-11Part one of a startling expose revealing what really happened in Iraq after the occupation of the country by Coalition troops.
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Episode 37 - Secret Iraq - Awakening
Release Date: 2010-10-18The story revealing how Coalition policy took Iraq to the brink of an all-out civil war and how key players in the U.S.
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Episode 38 - In a Fix
Release Date: 2010-10-25An investigation into the allegations of corruption and match fixing that threaten to undermine the multi-billion dollar sport of international cricket.
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Episode 39 - Bad Call
Release Date: 2010-11-01Everyone knows that telecommunications is a highly competitive business. Empires have been built on cheap phone calls and businesses are always looking to get a better deal from phone companies. But now Four Corners reporter Stephen Long blows the whistle on highly questionable phone deals.