“The cover-up is worse than the crime” is a common American saying, usually tied to Watergate. It means that hiding a wrong does more damage than the wrong itself.
No one has been identified as its author. It was in use by 1994, when the novelist Ward Just wrote, “As they say, it’s not the crime but the cover-up.” That year a newspaper columnist listed it as one of the myths about Nixon.
Since the mid-1970s NASA has run the Aviation Safety Reporting System for pilots and other aviation workers. A pilot who files a report within 10 days of an inadvertent violation is, under conditions, spared the civil penalty or suspension of the license.
The system has received more than 2.3 million reports. Identifying data is removed from every one.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act became law on August 4, 1988, without President Reagan’s signature. With some exceptions, employers of 100 or more workers must give at least 60 days’ advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.
The law does not prevent the layoff. It gives workers and their families time to adjust. An employer who fails to give notice owes back pay and benefits for up to 60 days.
Since January 1, 2022, a federal law called the No Surprises Act has protected patients against surprise medical bills. Before the law took effect, nearly one in five emergency room patients received a surprise bill, according to federal health officials.
The law does not forbid high costs. It forbids the surprise. Before non-emergency care, providers have to give uninsured patients a good faith estimate of the costs. A patient whose bill is $400 or more above the estimate can dispute it.
In 2016 hackers stole data on about 57 million Uber users and 600,000 driver’s license numbers. Uber’s security chief, Joe Sullivan, had the hackers paid $100,000 in bitcoin to sign nondisclosure agreements. He told his staff that “this investigation does not exist.” New management found out in 2017 and disclosed the breach.
In October 2022 a federal jury in San Francisco convicted Sullivan of obstruction and of concealing a felony. It was believed to be the first criminal prosecution of a company executive over a data breach.
The Society for Human Resource Management gives managers a rule for the annual review. “The first rule of performance reviews is that employees should never be surprised by what is said.”
Another SHRM article says the same: “an employee’s performance appraisal should never come as a shock to them.”
Lanny Davis served as special counsel to President Bill Clinton. In 1999 he published Truth to Tell, subtitled Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself.
His publisher summed up the lesson: “you can always make a bad story better by telling it early, telling it all, and telling it yourself.” In an open letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Davis warned against waiting for the facts to “dribble out, drip by drip.”
In November 2018, after the first 737 MAX crash, pilots at American Airlines confronted a Boeing executive in a meeting that, apparently without his knowledge, was being recorded. They had not been told about MCAS, a new flight-control system. “These guys didn’t even know the damn system was on the airplane,” one said. “We flat out deserve to know what is on our airplanes.”
In September 2020 the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported that Boeing had concealed “the very existence of MCAS from 737 MAX pilots.” Two crashes, in October 2018 and March 2019, killed 346 people.
Five Ohio State football players were suspended for the first five games of the next season. They had sold championship rings, uniforms and other memorabilia for cash or discounted tattoos at a Columbus tattoo parlor.
Then emails showed that the coach, Jim Tressel, had known since April 2010 and had not told his athletic director. Tressel had won Ohio State its first national title in 34 years. He resigned on May 30, 2011.
When Alan Mulally became Ford’s chief executive in 2006, the company was losing billions. He held a weekly Business Plan Review where each executive reported the status of his area by color. At first every status in every meeting was green.
Then Mark Fields showed red. He had stopped production of the Edge over a problem with the tailgate. “When I showed that first red, there was a lot of tension in the room,” Fields said. “Then Alan clapped.” Mulally said: “Great visibility, Mark. Is there anything we can do to help you?”