Like that old chestnut about having myriad ways to describe snow in the Inuktitut language, it seems English needs more than one word to describe a scandal. It used to be that a scandal could bring down governments. Now, a journalist's art dealings or a celebrity's Twitter meltdown are given the same weight as Richard Nixon's downfall.
We need a new word that describes the sort of scandal that "breaches the public trust in its public broadcaster to behave ethically," or "schadenfreude at Alec Baldwin having to delete his account [again]."
People make mistakes all the time, some – bigger than others. Don't lump them together under an umbrella that doesn't differentiate between bad accounting, bad behaviour and worst behaviour.
Let's leave real Scandal to Olivia Pope.
Cliff Lee