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Comment by verisimi | Hacker News Reader

> All this has left an intriguing question: how has a TV show achieved in one week more than investigative journalists and politicians in more than a decade?

My answer is that information can easily be buried by the media, courts, politicians. The purpose of media is to guide not inform - there is nothing natural about the news.

The more interesting question in my mind, is why is this news now? It can't be that a genuine issue has filtered into the public consciousness via a dramatised TV show.

Is it that the show and surrounding dreams is intended as a distraction? Is something in the drama 'reframing' reality? Perhaps it is intended to show how 'the justice system may be slow, but still calls people to account' ie an attempt to shore up faith in our system? Is the loss of someone's CBE (an honour) intended to be a lightning rod to channel popular discontent down a cul de sac?

This event requires a media analysis.

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It's not news, I'm no British or living in the UK but read about it in the Guardian years ago which reported about it again and again since 2015 and other newspapers did too https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/post-office-horizon-scan...

If the drama enables people to question whether the result their software gives them is correct, then it does a good deed indeed. The justice system being that slow is an indicator that it needs more resources.

The UK honour's system... Liz Truss' most chaotic seven weeks in UK politics and she has the impudence to even consider, let alone release the traditional honours list of a Prime Minister leaving office. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67843755

No one cared in the US about Bill Cosby's decades of rape allegations, either, until a recording of a stand-up comedian making a joke about it went viral and encouraged people to google "Bill Cosby rape".

> It can't be that a genuine issue has filtered into the public consciousness via a dramatised TV show.

Strongly disagree, for examples: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17820571.amp

(also one underestimates the sheer presence of Toby Jones at one’s peril)

Thank you for your link.

It seems you have missed my point though. Your example strongly supports my thesis that this event requires a media analysis.

From your linked article:

> It was in 1951 that BBC radio and the Ministry of Agriculture created The Archers, an "everyday story of country folk", which encouraged farmers to try new techniques to increase productivity in the years after WWII.

> "It's one thing to read a persuasive argument in print it's quite another to be persuaded by the power of the human voice," says Andrew Crisell, Professor of Broadcasting Studies at the University of Sunderland in the UK.

TV shows, news, the BBC, ITV, papers, etc, etc more broadly "stuff on screens" are used to deliver a message. Media literally mediates reality for you - this is how governance occurs. One is given a message, and then most people respond appropriately. (Obv. psychological 'tricks' are known and applied, eg reverse psychology.)

The question for me is what is the message that the media is attempting to be convey in this case? Answers on a postcard.

I guess this Toby Jones is not the one from the BBQ/foot massage ad? https://youtu.be/WPkMUU9tUqk

It's weird, I'm not sure where I first heard about it but I was well aware of the issue. The problem I had was that I just lumped it with Therac-25 and Araine Flight V88, cautionary tales from the past. I had no idea that postmasters were still awaiting justice.

> It can't be that a genuine issue has filtered into the public consciousness via a dramatised TV show

Why not? That's exactly what has happened.

> It can't be that a genuine issue has filtered into the public consciousness via a dramatised TV show.

Except that is exactly what has happened. The story was widely reported, nobody cared. Footballers wives fighting in court, people care. The royals, people care. Celebrities eating bugs in the jungle, people care.

If a person affected was on love island or dancing with the stars, people would have cared.

> why is this news now?

1. The public inquiry has begun digging into what actually happened.

2. An absolutely excellent TV drama has brought out in excruciating detail the misery inflicted on subpostmasters, and the unfairness of the processes.

The returned CBE is a consequence of the drama and the resulting public interest, not a cause.

I knew that this nonsense was going on, in a sort of subliminal way; I knew about the miscarriages of justice, from the MSM. The drama has - well - dramatized it. The drama's producer has expressed astonishment at the impact her show has made, but I'm not astonished. It's a really good drama. It pulls no punches. It must have been really hard to make, given that many of the people criticized are very powerful and rich, and that criticizing the rich and powerful can land you with very large bills to defend libel suits.

> This event requires a media analysis.

This event requires a rethinking of responsabilities and the power structure in the Post Office (but probably in all external goal oriented orgs). What a media analysis, in all its sloppiness, will do is make people believe there's a format for exposing scandals that can be used at will.

The point is that much was obvious for years. This particular scandal has been widely and publically reported on for years and years. Why did it take making a TV show for action to happen? That part goes way beyond the post office itself.

Fiction can be a lot more "real" than the facts for quite a few reasons.

I don't like conspiracy theories, but the ruling Tory party jumping on to this as a blame match against Labour (for the scandal dating to their reign) and their leader (being head of CPS during some of the prosecution period) and taking swift action to legislate something to overturn and compensate the victims of this great injustice and this whole thing being timed right before an incoming election that was more or less guaranteed to be a disaster for Conservatives implies either 1) a massive conspiracy orchestrated by the greatest British minds 2) or an incredibly opportunistic move to capture the public mood.

Absolutely. The media buried this for years. Now the media is bringing it to light. What is the ulterior motive?

It was reported quite a few times in the BBC, HN, and probably others, in the past couple of years. I think it had plenty of coverage but nobody really cared - it really affected business owners.

The software is dogshit as well as the company, their investigators and Post Office. But I think a lot of people were pressured into plea deal's or something, pressured/forced into repaying money they never stole, which complicated things quite heavily from a top-down analysis of these prosecutions. But the idea some random postmasters would collude in this all over the country is kind of crazy and I'm not sure how post offices are that profitable to begin with for each branch to have £40,000 stolen or whatnot..

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