UPDATE: Scandal has its own scandal after popular fan blogger accused of being ABC executive
As Scandal grew in popularity, so did Scandal411.com, a purported "fan blog" with a following of thousands. In addition to providing commentary on the show and a lively back-and-forth with readers, the site also managed to dish inside dirt on the show with surprising regularity.
But that regularity is less surprising now that it's been revealed that the author of Scandal411 was actually ABC executive Courtney Pajor. If only they knew of a high-powered PR fixer who could swoop in and manage this sort of… kerfuffle? Impropriety? Calumny? There has to be an ideal, irony-laden word for this situation.
Ah yes, Scandal. Anyway, in the wake of being exposed by The Wrap, the site has since been taken down from WordPress, and ABC claims it is investigating the situation, saying it takes "very seriously" the allegations. There's no real way of knowing whether Pajor was motivated by a genuine love of the show, or a professional desire to promote one of her network's hits (as well as occasionally attacking journalists who criticized it on Twitter). In all likelihood, it's some combination of the two—but if there's one thing you can't get away with on the Internet, it's violating the sacred tenets of honesty and transparency.
UPDATE: Day 2 of Scandalgate, and there's already a shocking twist. The Wrap, which first reported that Pajor was the blogger behind Scandal411, is now changing its story. According to ABC's head office—which is, by all appearances better at investigative journalism than The Wrap and possibly even ABC News—the Scandal411 blogger is in fact Pajor's secretive, long-lost, left-for-dead, out-for-vengeance… former roommate. So, not all that scandalous, really, especially as we made up all of those adjectives (besides “former”) to make this whole revelation seem a bit more thrilling.
But wait! Reading The Wrap's retraction further, it turns out it's not a retraction at all, as it concludes that Pajor’s ex-roommate "was masquerading as Pajor in potentially illegal ways." (Or, you know, she just liked one of the shows her old roommate's network put out, which we're pretty sure doesn't break any moral edicts. Unless the show is Dads.)
Anyway, yesterday, it seemed like this scandal could be a Watergate—a shocking abuse of power that enthralls a nation. Today, it looks a bit more like Whitewater: complicated, kind of boring, and with no clear idea of whether there was any actual wrongdoing, mostly just leaving us confused.