In the second instalment of this three-part series looking back on how the fifth estate covered the first decade of the new century, the show’s award-winning hosts reflect on some of its most extraordinary and unforgettable characters.
For the fifth estate’s investigative journalists, the telling moment of a key interview is crucial to their journalism and storytelling. Hana Gartner says: “When you sit down with somebody and they expose in some fundamental way exactly who they are, what they think and what they believe, in such a forthright manner, for me, that is the moment.”
Among the fifth estate people that Gartner and her colleagues Linden MacIntyre, Bob McKeown and Gillian Findlay will reflect on:
Bishop of Bountiful VARIOUS AIRDATES – In 2003, Hana Gartner first met Winston Blackmore, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway polygamist sect of the Mormon church in Bountiful, B.C. That interview, and others that followed, became some of the most memorable in the fifth estate’s vast catalogue of confrontations.
Luck of the Draw October 2006 – Gillian Findlay remembers a perfectly ordinary small-town Ontario senior citizen who became a perfectly extraordinary David to the Ontario Lottery Corporation’s Goliath. Bob Edmonds went to battle over a stolen lottery ticket and righted a wrong that changed the way the OLG does business.
The Iceman NOVEMBER 2006 – When their 23-year-old son Duncan went missing while on vacation in the Austrian Alps, his parents, Bob and Lynda MacPherson, refused to accept the official explanation of what had happened to him. Hana Gartner accompanied Bob and Lynda to Austria where their son’s body, and eventually the truth, was found.
Karlheinz Schreiber VARIOUS AIRDATES – For 15 years the fifth estate has investigated the 1988 sale of 34 Airbus A-320 jets to Air Canada and the mysterious dealmaker, Karlheinz Schreiber. Reporter Linden MacIntyre came to see the interplay of characters and story in this way: “There’s something Shakespearean about that. You see all the strengths and weaknesses of human character revealed in this story.
Lost in the Struggle October 2006 – When the fifth estate reported on the culture of violence in Toronto’s notorious Jane and Finch area, Gillian Findlay was drawn to Chuckie, the child of a Vietnamese immigrant, who struggled daily to leave behind a life of crime and end the cycle of violence that ruled his life.
The Rat NOVEMber 2006 – After a Toronto mother of three was the innocent victim of a mob hit gone wrong, the police were able to identify the shooters because of an informant, Raffaele Delle Donne. In disguise, Delle Donne sat down with Hana Gartner to tell her about his life as a small-time mobster with the Toronto Sicilian mafia—a story of turf wars, betrayal and attempted murder.
The Fall and Rise of Theo Fleury October 2009 – Against all odds, Theo Fleury—a physical lightweight in a heavyweight league—established himself as a major star in the National Hockey League. Through it all, Fleury was as troubled as he was talented and tough. In a candid interview with Bob McKeown, Fleury told his remarkable story of disgrace and redemption..
