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 - The Billion Dollar Bust
Release Date: 2018-02-05Linton Besser reports on the undercover operation to catch the world's most wanted money launderer in The Billion Dollar Bust.
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Episode 2 - Behind Closed Doors
Release Date: 2018-02-12The domestic workers treated like slaves in Australia. Louise Milligan investigates the hidden workforce kept behind closed doors, living in slave-like conditions and made to work around the clock.
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Episode 3 - City of Ghosts
Release Date: 2018-02-19The search for foreign fighters in the ruins of Raqqa. For four years Islamic State ruled its 'caliphate' from its capital Raqqa. ABC Middle East correspondent Matt Brown goes on an intense journey to the city freed from IS.
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Episode 4 - Everything Forbidden, Anything Possible
Release Date: 2018-02-26Dancing, drugs and rebellion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. After decades of strict rules, many young people in Iran are now rebelling. They're taking their lives in their hands and defying the regime to party in secret.
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Episode 5 - Weather Alert
Release Date: 2018-03-05How Australia's warming climate is changing the way we live and work. Rather than waiting for politicians, our farmers, small businesses, government planners and corporations are adapting to weather challenges and acting now.
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Episode 6 - Big Australia: Are We Ready?
Release Date: 2018-03-12Australia's population is growing fast, we've added almost 400,000 people in the last year, and we're feeling the strain. Ben Knight investigates what a Big Australia means and the difficult choices that will have to be made.
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Episode 7 - Working with Weinstein
Release Date: 2018-03-19The women who worked for Harvey Weinstein tell their stories. For the first time, work colleagues and employees who kept quiet fearing legal action and reprisals, are coming forward to allege he used his power to abuse them.
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Episode 8 - Super Risk
Release Date: 2018-03-26The millions of Australians missing out on superannuation. Despite having a .5 trillion pool of retirement savings, the rise of the gig economy and freelance workers mean millennials are entering a very different workforce.
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Episode 9 - Mongrel Bunch Of Bastards
Release Date: 2018-04-09Taking on the extraordinary powers of the Tax Office. Adele Ferguson puts the actions of the ATO under the microscope, examining how it uses its extensive powers and whether it is acting fairly and ethically.
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Episode 10 - Democracy, Data and Dirty Tricks
Release Date: 2018-04-16The undercover investigation that left social media giant Facebook reeling. We unmask the secretive political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and the dirty tricks they deployed to undermine the democratic process.
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Episode 11 - Green Rush
Release Date: 2018-04-23The race to riches for Australia's new marijuana moguls. While entrepreneurs are talking up the potential of products from insomnia cures to chronic pain treatments, patients are struggling to access cannabis products.
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Episode 12 - Tipping the Scales
Release Date: 2018-04-30Sugar, politics and what's making us fat. Michael Brissenden investigates the power of Big Sugar and its influence on public policy. We reveal the industry's tactics and the access they enjoy, as doctors warn of an obesity crisis.
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Episode 13 - I Am That Girl
Release Date: 2018-05-07The case that put sexual consent on trial. The young woman at the centre of one of Australia's most controversial rape trials has chosen to speak to Four Corners in the hope others will learn from her experience.
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Episode 14 - Banksters
Release Date: 2018-05-14The scandalous conduct of a global bank. HSBC is one of the world's largest and most powerful financial institutions, but it has been at the centre of several of the biggest financial scandals uncovered this century.
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Episode 15 - Complicit
Release Date: 2018-05-21The workers paying the price for our mobile phone obsession. Smartphones and tablets revolutionised the way we communicate but the technology we are addicted to has had toxic consequences for the factory workers making them.
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Episode 16 - Mind the Gap
Release Date: 2018-05-28Millions of Australians fork out big money for private health insurance. In this joint Four Corners investigation with Dr Norman Swan from RN's Health Report, we examine what's driving these out of pocket expenses.
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Episode 17 - Trump/Russia: Follow The Money
Release Date: 2018-06-04Four Corners follows the money trail from New York to Moscow, tracking the ties between Trump, his business empire and Russia.
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Episode 18 - Trump/Russia: Secrets, Spies and Useful Idiots
Release Date: 2018-06-11Sarah Ferguson continues to chart the extraordinary allegations, interrogating the evidence and interviewing key protagonists in this unfolding drama over members of the Trump team accused of being compromised by Russia.
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Episode 19 - Trump/Russia: Moscow Rules
Release Date: 2018-06-18In the final part of our special report, Sarah Ferguson investigates central allegations that members of the Trump team, including possibly the President himself, actively colluded with Russia to subvert American democracy.
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Episode 20 - Second Chance Kids
Release Date: 2018-06-25The teenage criminals sentenced to life in jail. Being tough on crime has become a popular mantra for political parties, but calls for a crackdown have led to tougher penalties and mandatory life sentences for some youths.
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Episode 21 - Outbreak
Release Date: 2018-07-02The quarantine failures putting the Australian economy at risk. Four Corners investigates some of the worst biosecurity breaches, uncovering sophisticated smuggling operations, inadequate enforcement and corruption.
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Episode 22 - Off Track
Release Date: 2018-07-09The Secrets and Scandals of Australian Horse Racing. With a prize pool more than million and employing 50,000 people it's one of our biggest industries, but away from the glamour all is not well in the sport of kings.
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Episode 23 - Out Of The Dark
Release Date: 2018-07-16The extraordinary rescue mission to save Thailand's lost boys. Mark Willacy documents the extraordinary international effort to find and rescue 12 school boys and their soccer coach from a remote cave in northern Thailand.
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Episode 24 - Money For Nothing
Release Date: 2018-07-23How corporate greed and deception cost AMP its trusted place in Australian life. How AMP ripped off customers including charging fees for no service and the measures it took to conceal its actions as it lied to the regulator.
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Episode 25 - Champagne With Dictators
Release Date: 2018-07-30Australia accused of failing to stand up for democracy as Cambodia descends into dictatorship. Sophie McNeill confronts the man whose political opponents have been imprisoned and assassinated in mysterious circumstances.
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Episode 26 - Inside Facebook
Release Date: 2018-08-06The undercover investigation exposing how Facebook decides what you see. An undercover reporter, training as a content moderator, is taken through the rules behind the social networking site, secretly filming the process.
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Episode 27 - Beauty's New Normal
Release Date: 2018-08-13Welcome to the new world of enhanced 'beauty' where there's nothing natural about the faces and bodies created by cosmetic procedures. Fuelled by social media influencers, cosmetic surgery has entered the mainstream.
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Episode 28 - Parenting 101
Release Date: 2018-08-20Having a child is supposed to be the most natural thing in the world, but knowing how to raise children can be daunting. Follow the story of three mothers determined to learn how to become better parents.
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Episode 29 - A Form of Madness
Release Date: 2018-08-27How the Liberal Party tore itself apart. This special Four Corners investigation takes you inside a political catastrophe. We chart the rise and fall of Malcolm Turnbull and the enemies that stalked him from within.
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Episode 30 - Populist Revolution
Release Date: 2018-09-03Strategist and provocateur Steve Bannon channelled the anger of those who felt left behind by globalism to elect Trump as president. Sarah Ferguson interviews Bannon on his crusade for a global populist-nationalist movement.
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Episode 31 - Manchester Bomb: Our Story
Release Date: 2018-09-10The teenage survivors rebuilding their lives. They were young girls and teenagers, out to see their favourite pop star in Manchester. As the show ended, a terrorist detonated a home-made bomb killing 22 and injuring 250.
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Episode 32 - Who Cares? (Part 1)
Release Date: 2018-09-17In part one, Four Corners investigates the business of aged care and what that means for the vulnerable residents left in its care. Families speak out with disturbing accounts of overworked staff and neglected residents.
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Episode 33 - Who Cares? (Part 2)
Release Date: 2018-09-24In part two, we detail shocking cases of abuse and premature deaths in our nursing homes. Carers and families come forward to tell their stories and reveal the abject failure of government regulation to protect the elderly.
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Episode 34 - Proud Country
Release Date: 2018-10-01A portrait of a community surviving the drought. A story from the heart of the drought, a portrait of the land and its people where lack of rain is biting hard. Witness the strength of Quirindi doing all they can to carry on.
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Episode 35 - The Monsanto Papers
Release Date: 2018-10-08The secret tactics used by global chemical giant Monsanto to protect its billion-dollar business and its star product, the weed killer, Roundup. We trace the company's influence campaign from the US back to Australian farms.
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Episode 36 - Prisons Uncovered
Release Date: 2018-10-15Hidden cameras behind bars reveal the problems facing governments around the world: how to manage soaring prison populations, rife with drugs, violence and squalid living conditions as well as the rise of privately run jails.
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Episode 37 - Big Guns
Release Date: 2018-10-22How a cashed up gun industry has Australia's firearms laws in its sights. Sean Nicholls examines a lobby group funded and directed by major firearms sellers and manufacturers employing new tactics, connections and influence.
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Episode 38 - Windsor Inc.
Release Date: 2018-10-29The visit by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was a triumph for the House of Windsor brand. We examine the sophisticated corporate campaign to future-proof the Crown and how the Royals modernised and rebuilt their reputation.
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Episode 39 - Crime and Panic
Release Date: 2018-11-05According to the media, Melbourne is in the grip of a crimewave, overrun by African street gangs responsible for a wave of violence. Reporter Sophie McNeill is on the ground to get to the truth about "African" crime.
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Episode 40 - Bitter End
Release Date: 2018-11-12The final Four Corners for 2018 examines the corporate crisis that engulfed the ABC and brought down both the Managing Director and Chair. Sarah Ferguson speaks with inside players including Michelle Guthrie and Justin Milne.