A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing or criminalizing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own misdeeds) from relational cover-ups (covering up someone else's misdeeds)
The expression is usually applied to people in positions of authority who abuse power to avoid or silence criticism or to deflect guilt of wrongdoing.
Contents
Overview
A cover-up is an attempt, successful or not, to conceal or prevent discovery of information or evidence about a crime, mistake, or unethical actions, often to safeguard reputation. It differs from other unethical behavior as a reaction to earlier questionable behavior.
There are different types of coverup organized by the scale and motive for the cover-up. Personal cover-ups are intended to hide an individual's actions and relational cover-ups occur when someone attempts to conceal another person's actions. There are also institutional or organizational cover-ups where a group is involved, and multiagency where multiple institutions take part in a cover-up. Psychology professor Anthony Montgomery writes that there are "elements that are crucial for the development and maintenance of [organizational] cover-ups: (1) Unwilling, but compliant, participants who are unlikely to be whistleblowers, (2) Suppressing/withholding important information, (3) Proactively engaging the support of related actors/institutions that helps create a critical mass, (4) Owning the narrative, and (5) Moral disengagement."
Examples
The Dreyfus Affair
Armenian genocide denial
Katyn massacre
The Iran–Contra affair
The Luzhniki disaster
The Chernobyl disaster
The My Lai massacre
The Roman Catholic sex abuse cases of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The Watergate scandal
Russian doping scandals
Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal