- By Alex Taylor and Yasmin Rufo
- BBC News
January 9, 2024
Updated 2 hours ago
Journalism's million-dollar question, while little known outside the industry, is “nutty”: How can a story be crafted to not only reach an audience, but also captivate them?
It's a challenge that investigative journalist Nick Wallis, a key player in uncovering the postal scandal that began at the turn of the millennium, will know all too well.
His work has helped give a voice to over 700 workers who were prosecuted after faulty mail software called Horizon made it appear that money was missing.
The fight for justice in the decades that followed led to Wallis publishing his own book about the scandal (as a sequel in the Chron), alongside investigations by BBC Panorama, Computer Weekly and Private Eye, among others.
But 25 years after the first convictions for theft and fraud, the four-part ITV drama Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office,” which renewed mass public interest in the scandal like never before.
According to ITV figures, the mini-series has been watched by nine million viewers so far. It centers on the story of Subpostmaster Alan Bates, played by actor Toby Jones, who led and won a legal battle that paved the way for dozens of convictions to be overturned.
Latest news on the postal scandal
Since the series began airing on Jan. 1, more than 100 new potential victims have contacted attorneys, including former subpostmasters who were pursued by the Postal Service.
Westminster has tried to keep up, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling the case an “appalling miscarriage of justice” in an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
The government is now under pressure to overturn wrongful convictions and address compensation. In response to public outcry, the Post's former boss, Paula Vennells, agreed to hand back her CBE.
It marks a long-awaited breakthrough for victims. But why now and why in response to a television show?
Emotional impact
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Watch: I'm really, really angry – the postmaster gets emotional
For the series' executive producer, Patrick Spence, it proves what unique power drama can be found in the creation of human relationships.
He told BBC Radio 4: “The drama can go into the homes of the sub-postmasters who have suffered so much and dramatize the pain that they have gone through.”
“[It] can do something that a documentary and a newspaper article cannot… they can bring to life the true emotional impact on the people who were victims of the Post's abhorrent behavior.”
But these two media often do not compete with each other, but often complement each other to create a lasting impact, says arts journalist Fiona Sturges.
“I think it's easy to view the media as a separate entity when these kinds of dramas are so often inspired by stories carefully researched by journalists over years.
“But I also think television dramas can convey a level of humanity and color that print media can’t always achieve, especially because of space and reach limitations.”
Other dramas that sparked change
- In 2017, a three-part drama series aired on BBC One based on the true events of the 2012 Rochdale Grooming case, in which nine men were charged with offenses including rape, human trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child. Told from the perspective of teenage victims, “Three Girls” helped raise awareness of child abuse and child grooming. While the series was airing, the government passed stricter laws on grooming and a new law came into effect imposing a two-year prison sentence on groomers who target children via cell phones and social media.
- It's A Sin, one of Channel 4's most-watched drama series with 6.5 million views, aired in 2021. It follows a group of gay men in 1980s London who were affected by the evolving HIV/AIDS crisis. Although fictional, it was based on writer Russell T. Davies' experiences as a young gay man growing up during this time. The show changed the public perception of HIV and helped reduce the stigma associated with it. This also led to an increase in HIV testing and an increase in Google searches for “how many people died of AIDS in the 1980s.”
image description,
It's A Sin follows a group of friends during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s
The reaction is far from the first time that a docudrama has captured public attention and pressured politicians to act.
Cathy Come Home, Ken Loach's BBC television drama about homelessness, caused a huge public reaction when it was first broadcast in 1966.
As Mark Lawson wrote in the Guardian, the charities Crisis and Shelter “undoubtedly benefited from the parliamentary debate” and raised awareness of the disadvantage that followed the drama.
Sturges adds that it allowed viewers to “really think about what that would be like and create a space where statistics become people with complex characters and stories.”
Similarly, she says Jimmy McGovern's “Hillsborough,” which dramatized the fight for justice by the families of 97 Liverpool fans killed in the 1989 Sheffield Wednesday Stadium massacre, conveys the discomfort and ugliness that resulting from the extensive reporting on the issue, turned into what was described as an “emotionally charged human story.”
The original investigation focused on the two years after the tragedy, when an accidental death was declared in 1991, and its broadcast five years later helped cement a shift in public opinion.
When the convictions were finally overturned in 2016 and the deaths were declared unlawful, then Walton MP Steve Rotheram described the docudrama as “hugely influential” in the search for the truth.
Fight the system
McGovern told the BBC he was commissioned by the Hillsborough families to produce the drama not because the story was not well known, but because it was phrased in a certain way – and a docudrama flipped the narrative.
It was a story about institutional failure after fans were unfairly blamed for the disaster. It made the families the heroes and rightful victims of history.
The same sense of outrage was evident in the reaction to Mr. Bates, says Spence, who views the reaction politically.
“As a country we feel unheard by our politicians and our government. And I think that this drama seems to have fueled that anger.”
“Our goal was simply to make them feel like their story was heard… but what people have associated with it, I think, is the feeling that no one is listening to the people who deserve it most.”
The frantic political and governmental response, including the possible passage of a specific law to provide relief to those affected, can therefore be seen as an act of preservation.
Toby Jones, the actor who portrays Mr Bates, believes the reaction shows the enduring value of drama in promoting public awareness and national debate.
“Drama is constantly downgraded as an important issue, but historically it has always been a place where, even if people don't believe it can bring about change, they still suggest change… and therefore cannot be ignored.”
“In most political upheavals in history, not least in ancient Greece and revolutionary Russia, this drama has been at the heart of political change, and people have used it to humanize, dramatize and effect change.”
BBC Panorama's Post Office Inquiry will be rebroadcast tonight at 10.40pm on BBC One. Watch now BBC iPlayer.