The fifth estate (always branded in all-lower case) is a Canadian television newsmagazine, which airs on the English language CBC Television network. 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 1975, and its primary focus is on investigative journalism. 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.

It has won far more awards than any other Canadian information program,^{[citation needed]} including scores of Gemini awards - among them ten for Best Information Series, numerous domestic investigative journalism awards, many New York and Columbus awards, International Emmys, and in 2000 The Michener Award, Canada's top journalism prize, which is open to all media and has only one annual winner. One recent co-production with The New York Times and PBS's Frontline was recognized with the Pulitzer, Peabody, Polk and other awards.

The term "Fifth Estate" has no fixed meaning, but is used to describe any class or group in society other than the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), the commoners (Third Estate), and the press (Fourth Estate). It has been used to describe civil society (including trade unions) and the poor or the proletariat. It can also be used to describe media outlets (including the blogosphere) that see themselves in opposition to mainstream media (the official Press). The term is entirely different in origin and meaning from "Fifth Column", which is used to describe subversive or insurgent elements in a society.

Nimmo and Combs assert that political pundits constitute a Fifth Estate. Media researcher Stephen D. Cooper argues that bloggers are the Fifth Estate. William Dutton has argued that the Fifth Estate is not simply the blogging community, nor an extension of the media, but 'networked individuals' enabled by the Internet in ways that can hold the other estates accountable.

The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to Magna Carta in 1215. For instance, grand juries and the phrase due process (also found in the 14th Amendment) both trace their origin to Magna Carta.

Grand juries, which return indictments in many criminal cases, are composed of a jury of peers and operate in closed deliberation proceedings; they are given specific instructions regarding the law by the judge. Many constitutional restrictions do not apply during grand jury proceedings. For example, the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence presented to a grand jury; the exclusionary rule states that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth or Sixth amendments cannot be introduced in court. Also, defendants do not have the right to have their attorneys present in grand jury rooms during hearings; they would normally have such a right during questioning by the police while in custody. The grand jury indictment clause of the Fifth Amendment has not been incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment; in other words, it has not been ruled applicable to the states. States are free to abolish grand juries, and many (though not all) have replaced them with preliminary hearings.

Julian Paul Assange ( /əˈsɒnʒ/ ə-SONZH; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian computer programmer, political/internet activist, publisher, and journalist. He is best known as the editor in chief and founder of WikiLeaks, a media website which publishes information from whistleblowers. The site acts as a conduit for worldwide news leaks, with a stated purpose of creating open governance.

WikiLeaks has published material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Côte d'Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer. In 2010, WikiLeaks published Iraq War documents and Afghan War documents about American involvement in the wars, some of which was classified material. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five international print media partners (Der Spiegel, The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian and El País) began publishing U.S. diplomatic cables.

Assange was a hacker-activist in his youth, before becoming a computer programmer and then becoming internationally renowned for his work with WikiLeaks. He has lived in several countries and has made public appearances in many parts of the world to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award, Readers' Choice for TIME magazine's 2010 Person of the Year, the 2011 Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal and the 2011 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.Snorre Valen, a Norwegian parliamentarian, nominated him for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English film, television, radio and theatre actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama Hawking (2004); William Pitt in the historical film Amazing Grace (2006); the protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller The Last Enemy (2008); Paul Marshall in Atonement (2007); Bernard in Small Island (2009); Sherlock Holmes in the modern BBC adaptation series Sherlock (2010); and Peter Guillam in the spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).

In February 2011, he began playing both Victor Frankenstein and his creature opposite Jonny Lee Miller in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The play had a three-month run at the National Theatre. In late 2011, he played Major Stewart in Steven Spielberg's War Horse (2011). The film received five BAFTA nominations and six Academy Award nominations, including the Best Picture nomination in 2012. He also played Peter Guillam, one of the pivotal roles in Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011), which was nominated for three Academy Awards and 11 BAFTA Awards. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was also nominated for Best Picture in 2012.