Scandal

Lore & Background

The English word 'scandal' derives from the Ancient Greek σκάνδαλον, meaning 'trap, snare, stumbling block, offence, scandal.' In Patristic Greek, it acquired religious meanings relating to sin, and in medieval English it referred to deeds of religious persons that discredit their religion, impeding its proper practice. Scandals can be political, sexual, moral, literary, or artistic, and often spread from one realm into another. The basis may be factual or false, or a combination of both.

Reader's Guide

Scandals have historically created a tension between society's efforts to reveal wrongdoing and its desire to cover it up. The act of covering up—or revealing—a contentious situation may itself become a scandal.

Contemporary media has the capacity to spread knowledge of a scandal further than in previous centuries, and public interest has encouraged both confected scandals relating to well-known people and genuine scandals in politics and business. Whistleblowers, such as Deep Throat during the Watergate scandal, have played key roles in exposing wrongdoing, and may be protected by laws. Scandals have impacted various fields: literary scandals involve fraud or misrepresentation; political scandals involve corruption or unethical practices; business scandals, like the Olympus financial scandal exposed by Michael Woodford, can threaten lives; media scandals include journalistic ethics violations and quiz show rigging; sex scandals involve allegations of immoral sexual activities; and sports scandals involve doping, bribery, and corruption, as seen with Lance Armstrong and the 2015 FIFA corruption case.

Did You Know?

• The Watergate scandal led other English-speaking countries to borrow the suffix '-gate' for their own scandals.
• The American quiz show scandals of the 1950s involved contestants conspiring with producers to rig outcomes, leading Congress to make rigging a federal crime.
• Whistleblower Michael Woodford exposed a $1.7 billion financial scandal at Olympus and fled Japan fearing for his life.