After six weeks of relative quiet, the other shoe finally fell in Sony’s hacking scandal today, as the company announced that its embattled co-chairman, Amy Pascal, would be stepping down. She released the standard statement for a departing chief, with lines like “I am so proud of what we have all done together and I look forward to a whole lot more.” But as I wrote at Quartz,

That was pretty standard corporate speak for a departing chief, but no amount of spin can disguise the reality of what happened: Pascal is stepping down not because of some longing to become a producer, but because of the fallout from the hacking scandal, most notably the career-scorching leaked emails that were at the center of the maelstrom that enveloped the company for much of December. The only surprise about Pascal’s departure was that it didn’t happen sooner.

It’s also the latest reminder that whenever there is a huge scandal at a company, especially a global media corporation like Sony, someone always has to take the fall. The only question is who is made the scapegoat.

And once Pascal’s hacked emails were made public in December, it was obvious who that person was going to be. The hackers might have lost the battle when The Interview was released against their wishes, but today they won the war.

Amy Pascal is proof that Sony’s scandal wouldn’t be over until someone took a fall