“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” So the saying goes. But history has proven time and time again that what you don’t know most certainly can hurt you, especially in a time when information is more accessible than ever before. Governments and individuals alike engage in cover-ups of all sizes to preserve a certain image, perpetuate a narrative, or concentrate their power without fear of backlash. Through Cover-Up, we hope to provide a space for the conversations that those in power try to avoid, investigate how and why transparency plays a vital role in everything from activism to commerce to daily life, and challenge the narratives we believe and perpetuate about government, business, society, and ourselves.
“Cover Up” was developed by Harvard Political Review Local section editors Aidan Scully and Naomi Corlette with the aim of uncovering the ways in which information is being actively hidden. “Transparency has become a hot topic recently,” they said, elaborating that the theme was a response to “government officials hiding valuable insights, large companies covering up their operations, and even the ways in which users’ information is being shared online.”
Cover-ups can take on a more personal form as well, whether it concealment of identity or misrepresentation of one’s interests, background, or self. Through this cycle, our Local Section editors and the HPR broadly hope to shed light on the very transparency so many of us crave for ourselves and the environments and institutions in which we operate, to illuminate topics often shoved under the rug, and help uncover what’s really going on.
Learn more about the creators that made this issue possible below.
