The Fifth Estate is a Canadian television newsmagazine. The name is a play on the fact that the media are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, and was chosen to highlight the program's determination to go beyond everyday news into original journalism. The program has been on the air since September 16, 1975, and its primary focus is on investigative journalism. Stories from The Fifth Estate routinely make headlines in Canada and have been regularly exported to other television networks around the world. The Fifth Estate is Canada's foremost current affairs program. It has engaged in co-productions with the BBC, The New York Times, the leading Canadian newspapers The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, and often with the PBS series Frontline. The Fifth Estate is one of two television series to win an Academy Award: Just Another Missing Kid, originally a The Fifth Estate episode, was released in theatres in the United States and won the 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
