Four Corners was originally conceived as a program with a magazine format offering an informed commentary on the week's events. It filled a space on Australian television roughly comparable to the British Broadcasting Commission's Panorama (from which it often borrowed material in the 1960s) or the early current affairs programming developed by Ed­ ward R. Murrow for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in the United States. It was also notable for providing the first truly national orientation on news and current affairs in Australia, either on television or in print.

     Stylistically, Four Corners has been an innovator in documentary strategies for Australian television and film. The program frequently presents itself as frankly personalized and argumentative. The narrator has generally appeared on-screen, a significant break with the off-screen "voice-of-God" narration that was the dominant convention in 1950s documentaries. The involvement of the narrators-reporters with their subject, usually on locations, gives the program an immediacy and realism, while also opening up subjective points of view. As Albert Moran argues in "Constructing a Nation: Institutional Documentary since 1945," these developments paralleled the emergence in the l960s of direct cinema and cinema verite, as well as an increasing cultural pluralism reflected in documentary subject matter.

     Since the mid- I970s the program has developed the format of a 45-minute topical documentary introduced by a studio host, occasionally varied with studio debate. The most frequently cited examples are investigative reports that have had a direct impact on political institutions, such as a 1983 program, "The Big League," which disclosed interference in court hearings of charges laid against prominent figures in the New South Wales Rugby League, or the 1988 pro­ gram "The Moonlight State," which revealed corruption at high levels in the Queensland police force. However, the program has also been important for its "slice of life" portrayals of the everyday worlds of social relations, work, health, and leisure, which have increased awareness of social and cultural diversity. Four Corners was very early to represent Australia as a multicultural society, with a report, for example, in 1961 on the German-speaking community in South Australia.

     Four Corners made an early reputation for testing the boundaries of expectations of television as a medium, as well as the limits of political acceptability. At a time when television current affairs genres were still unfamiliar, this sometimes involved little more than taking the camera outside the controlled space of the studio or the inclusion of unscripted material. A 1963 program on the Returned Servicemen's League (RSL), for example, stirred controversy for showing members of the organization in casual dress drinking at a bar, rather than exclusively in the context of formally structured studio debate. However, controversy extended also to the kinds of political questions that were raised. The story on the RSL directly challenged the organization on its claim to political neutrality. Another story from the same period drew attention to the appalling living conditions and political disenfranchisement of aboriginal people living on a reserve near Casino in rural New South Wales, an issue that had almost no public exposure at the time.

     Four Corners has consistently been accused of political bias, particularly of a left-wing orientation, and critics charge it with failing to abide by the ABC's charter, which requires "balance" in the coverage of news and current affairs. The program is generally defended by its makers, ABC management, and supporters on the grounds that the importance of open public debate outweighs the damage that might be caused to interested parties and that, while the program may be argumentative, it is not unfair.

     The program is also a frequent point of reference in debates over government-funded broadcasting. Four Corners has never achieved high ratings by the standards of the commercial networks and is often contrasted in content and style to commercial rivals such as the Nine Network's Sixty Minutes, which is able to claim much wider popular appeal. Despite increasing pressure on the ABC to become more commercially oriented, however, the program has continued to articulate values that are distinct from considerations of popularity-the importance of representing the positions and points of view of minorities, the necessity of forcing public institutions to accountability, and a place for television current affairs that performs an educative role. In doing so, Four Corners is often taken as representative of the position and identity of publicly funded broadcasting as a whole.