fourth estate (forth i-STAYT) noun

  Journalistic profession, the press.

[Supposedly, a power other than the three estates (the Lords Spiritual, the
Lords Temporal, and the House of Commons) in UK.]

   "According to Akre, reporters see the case as `too inside baseball' -
   media code for the unwritten rule that news organizations avoid writing
   about themselves or the industry. It's the crux of the crisis in the
   Fourth Estate: no one is watching the watchdogs."
   Fox Guilty of Playing Chicken, Adbusters Magazine (Vancouver, Canada),
   March/April 2001.

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/fourth_estate.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/fourth_estate.ram