The purpose of this paper is to identify and explain why pack journalism, a widespread media practice where large groups of reporters collaborate to cover the same story, should be abolished, or at least lessened in frequency. Particularly analyzed are seven unethical consequences of pack journalism. As such, pack journalism is responsible for issues of journalistic laziness, short-term and long-term harm to readers and viewers, an amplified endangerment of privacy and lives, a loss of independence in news reporting, the threat of lost credibility in the content of news reported by packs, defamatory, slanderous, and libelous news, and economic inefficiencies.

This paper is a thorough examination of pack journalism, a widespread media practice where large groups of reporters from different media outlets collaborate to cover the same story, and how it has negatively impacted the media and society in general. Particularly analyzed are seven unethical consequences of pack journalism. As such, pack journalism is responsible for issues of journalistic laziness, short-term and long-term harm to readers and viewers, an amplified endangerment of privacy and lives, a loss of independence in news reporting, the threat of lost credibility in the content of news reported by packs, defamatory, slanderous, and libelous news, and economic inefficiencies. Secondly, based on the ethical recommendations made by the Hutchins Commission (with regard to Social Responsibility Theory), another goal of this paper is to identify and explain why pack journalism should be abolished, or at least lessened in frequency. Finally, although the point is made that some reporters consider pack journalism as a necessary evil, the ultimate objective of this paper is to explore alternative, more ethically-sound forms of newsgathering (i.e., enterprise/independent journalism) in order to supplant or supplement pack journalism.

Pack journalism is a phenomenon by which large groups of reporters from different media outlets collaborate to cover the same story (Ross, 1998). They cite or draw from the same sources, simultaneously, with the same purpose (Bovard, 2007; Grimes, 1994) and employing the same methods (Kalb, 1994). They move in a swarm where they observe carefully what the others are doing (Smith, 2007). Oftentimes, they flock from hotspot to hotspot, clump together in a hotel overlooking the streets, and crowd outside courthouses, city halls, or at the scene of an accident or catastrophe. Their main goal is to obtain comments from the important sources (Emery, 1999).

Pack journalism has existed for a long period of time. For instance, it occurred in 1960 when masses of reporters frequently followed President Eisenhower. Steele, Babcock, and Johnson (1999), young reporters at the time, observed the following: "Reporters were talking about what the story was; they were agreeing what the essence was before it even happened. After the event, they collaborated on the collective lead" (p. 2).

However, not until 1973 was the term "pack journalism" coined by a man named Timothy Crouse. Crouse’s motivation to put forth that term – also called "herd journalism," "fuselage journalism," or "communitarian journalism" (Craig, 1996) – came from his observation, during his participation in the 1972 Nixon and McGovern presidential elections, of how campaign journalists were following political candidates, for weeks or months at a time, like packs of wolves. Embarked on the same bus or airplane, those journalists ate, drank, hung out, compared notes with other colleagues week after week (Crouse, 1973), gossiped, and slept alongside one another (Bennett, 2003). Campaign journalism, Crouse (1973) believes, has molded into pack journalism. The intent is to follow a candidate; one must join a pack of other reporters, where even the most independent reporter "cannot completely escape the pressures of the pack" (1973, p. 15).

Today, pack journalism has become incorporated into conventional political journalism (McNair, 2000). This pack-style of news coverage leads to the agenda setting of journalism, which, in turn, leads to "mainstream pack journalism" (Wright, 2003). The problem here is that pack journalism is considered not only erroneous and inefficient, but also unethical (Ross, 1998). In fact, significant figures in the fields of journalism and government share similar views on the harmful and unethical nature of this news media practice (Belsey & Chadwick, 1992; Ross, 1998). Pack journalism is responsible for issues of journalistic laziness (Tumber & Webster, 2006), short-term and long-term harm to readers and viewers, an amplified violation of privacy, a loss of independence in news reporting, the threat of lost credibility in the content of news reported by packs, and economic inefficiencies (Smith, 2007). More importantly, not only can such unethical journalism jeopardize lives, but it can also create unjust defamation of careers and spread slanderous and libelous news (Englehardt, 2002; Sanders, 2003; Seib, 1997).

The role of journalists is to gather and publish original information, not falsify information due to a deliberate lack of effort and motivation. Yet, particularly rampant in the political setting, pack journalism has become mindless and unscrupulous copycat behavior that stems from journalistic laziness (Mundy, 1995). As such, prominent news organizations highlight similar, if not identical, stories, using the same sources (Kalb, 1994; Tumber & Webster, 2006), each one churning out the same words, asking the same questions, and ending up with the same article. Ben-David (2000), a prominent Israeli diplomat, goes even further when he remarks on that form of journalistic laziness. According to him, reporters literally copy from handouts that are supplied by Palestinian sources or plagiarize for each other. Simply put, pack journalists just go with the flow (Ben-David, 2000). Part of the rationale for this type of sluggishness and copycat behavior is that the media world has erupted to such a degree that it has become like a self-sufficient entity, living for itself (Emery, 1999).

Pack journalism is oftentimes the real villain, turning trivial news stories into national concerns (Saltzman, 1993) and losing sight of other important events that are occurring elsewhere in the world. This phenomenon creates both negative short-term and long-term consequences to news readers and viewers. On the one hand, it can inflict short-term negative outcomes on the general public in that when a mass of pack journalists cover a news story in an overseas location, the readers and viewers can immediately lose sight of other newsworthy events that are happening at other locations.

On the other hand, in looking at a particular long-term impact, "pack journalism reduces all news values to ‘let’s make sure the competition doesn’t get too far ahead of us’" (Gordon et al., 1999, p. 287). If news is classified as "what everyone is chasing, then newsgathering becomes a sports event rather than an essential part of our social and political life" (Gordon et al., 1999, p. 287). Readers and viewers will not take the news seriously because they will view media organizations as competitive markets that do not care about informing the public truthfully. In considering these negative consequences and ramifications of pack journalism, the unethical nature should prohibit its (pack journalism) ability to operate. Another disturbing long-term consequence that pack journalism inflicts on its viewers and readers is the under-representation of minority parties as a result of the media’s primary focus on prominent figures over minority groups or individuals (Tumber & Webster, 2006).

In the same train of thought, to distance themselves from the phenomenon of pack journalism, reporters have hit upon the curious rhetorical strategy of writing about it as if they were not involved (Russell, 2003). Yet, daily observation of covered campaigns by other journalists can create a narrow-minded vision about the campaign that one is covering. Likewise, watching the same reporter regularly will not only create a single perspective on the race, but also a myopic view of the campaign. Consequently, there is no reason for journalists to deny that they are different than pack journalists (Bovard, 2007). What is problematic is that such distanced reflexivity has a long-term negative impact on viewers and readers. This strategic ritual is aimed at maintaining the journalism culture in the face of lasting and incessant public resentment with intrusive reporting and excessive coverage (Russell, 2003).

Pack journalism has also been used in a myriad of significant events that have resulted in a loss of privacy and even lives to the individual(s) being covered by the herds of reporters. As such, pack journalism can be more intrusive and fatal than an individualistic hunt for news due to the excessive nature of pack coverage and the widespread, overpowering, and oppressive presence of those working in the pack. Consequently, the level of endangerment to privacy and lives can amplify. This extreme form of unethical practice can be clearly seen in the coverage of Princess Diana’s 1997 fatal car crash in Paris. Large numbers of paparazzi "stalked" Diana and her boyfriend with cameras. They also knew that sizable cash rewards and promises of publication from both the tabloids and the mainstream press were offered to them for any pictures they could take of Diana and her boyfriend (Gordon et al., 1999).

The paparazzi were driven to follow them based on the numerous financial incentives offered by these media entities. One ethical dilemma in this type of pack journalism case is that these journalists disregarded the privacy of their targets and were indifferent of the risks that could be posed on these two "targets" (who were eventually killed in a car crash). As it appears, evidence shows that pack journalists can be dangerously intrusive to the private lives of people who wish to be left alone, even though an inherent result of being a "star" is that the media will be hovering over like "flies on a carcass."

A similar noteworthy event that typifies the unethical and deadly nature of pack journalism is the Ohio’s media coverage of the Lucasville prison riot of 1993. The riot involved a prison-wide rampage that left numerous inmates and one guard dead. According to Joe Hallett (2003), senior editor for the Columbus Dispatch, "never in this state’s history has an event been covered so relentlessly or so massively. Or, as it turned out, so badly" (p. 5). Since little information was "fed" to journalists seeking updates on the riot, "rumors were widely reported, potentially harming delicate negotiations with inmates and endangering the lives of hostages" (Hallett, 2003, p. 5). Again, the perils of pack journalism are sadly apparent in this media coverage. The ultimate downfall and ethical dilemma is that lives were at stake and were unfortunately lost.

Perhaps the worst result of pack journalism "is the loss of independent reporting" (Gordon et al., 1999, p. 286). It is not unusual that correspondents report encountering obstructions from editors. Their stories are changed without consultation and, in some cases, even completely modified to match the pack journalist bias (Brock, 1994). For instance, during the civil war in former Yugoslavia, editors changed independent correspondents’ stories in order to receive offerings from the "pack" (Brock, 1994). Although journalists like to view themselves as non-conformists and independent thinkers, they are urged to "follow the pack" (Smith, 2007). Their individual opinions about events become socialized because of that conformity to the concurrent interpretation of those events. By the same token, many news organizations assign numerous reporters to the same events. As a result, they sense a loss of independent reporting, a loss of selection of news topics, and a loss of freedom to dissent (Stone, 1989). Gordon et al., Reuss (1999) note that,

Truly, it looks like the typical lone-reporter approach of newsgathering that is deemed "critical, analytical, and interpretative" (Lule, 1992, p. 4) and that aims for originality of the subjects from which to choose (Grossman, 2000) has been replaced by forms of "groupthink" (Janis, 1972) and herd mentality that render news coverage one-dimensional. When it happens, individuality suffers. More importantly, those who are responsible for practicing pack journalism are not those that the general public would expect them to be, that is, the reporters. The real culprits are the news editors and news organizations themselves.

Threat of Lost Credibility in the Content of News Reported by Packs

Not surprisingly, because pack journalism has been replaced by forms of "groupthink" (Janis, 1972) and herd mentality that render news coverage one-dimensional and one-sided, it has also resulted in the loss of credibility of the news reported (Ben-David, 2000) through the uses of misleading and extreme rhetoric (Haiman, 1999). By extension, Kalb (1994) describes how pack journalists are not motivated to fulfilling their inherent goal as journalists, which he contends is to collect and publish fair and reliable news. For instance, Alexandra Pelosi (McCabe, 2002) created a video documentary about the numerous instances of pack journalism coverage on George W. Bush’s presidential activities. The film served as a "subtle commentary on the institution of ‘pack’ journalism, in which a horde of reporters follows a politician’s carefully scripted activities, manufacturing cookie cutter news" (McCabe, 2002). Pelosi was aiming to identify the lack of veracity in pack journalism and how stories were merely one-dimensional and one-sided. This ethical issue of journalistic inaccuracy is an instance that poses a threat to truthful news coverage, contrary to the real objective of journalism and media.

Second, because pack journalists are constrained and rushed by time, which impedes their motivation and obligation to gather what we believe is reliable news, (Steele, Babcock, & Johnson, 1999), they tend to release stories that lack common sense and accuracy. As Kann (1994) puts it, criteria of news stories (i.e., findings and publications of reporters) seem to drop to the lowest common denominator. Furthermore, the larger the pack, the more misleading and dull the performance. Crouse (1973) condemned this deceptive practice of pack journalism as the following:

Third, although a favorable argument of pack journalism is that news organizations can only be confident of the validity of the story’s content by using their own staff to cover the story (Gordon et al., 1999), a significant flaw exists regarding the above statement, as "certain stories aren’t covered because limited resources are devoted to being one of the pack, and of all media’s reliance on the wire services, freelancers, CNN, or Court TV" (Gordon et al., 1999, p. 286). In many cases, media editors and publishers depend on mainstream coverage of events to provide credence and believability to the information they are gathering for publication.

We already know that the media are not always soft on political figures like George W. Bush (Smolkin, 2003). The media can also jeopardize lives, create unjust defamation of careers, disseminate slanderous and libelous news (Englehardt, 2002; Sanders, 2003; Seib, 1997), and fuel the feeding frenzy of scandal coverage (Sabato, 1991). Pack journalism undoubtedly comes into play when political candidates become vulnerable and easy targets. Crouse (1973) noticed that pack journalists ridicule and defame such political candidates:

The unethical issue here is that when journalists isolate one incident of faux-pas on the part of a politician, but also a professional or a company, they hyperbolize and permeate a type of widespread suspicion about the uprightness of that politician, professional, or company. This generalization causes the public to believe that no one in these positions can be trusted (Tumber & Webster, 2006). In effect, the public denigrates and questions the overall veracity and morale of all people who have been slandered by pack journalists, thereby yielding widespread suspicion and contempt.

In a similar fashion, pack journalism can make the media a powerful actor on the political stage, which can negatively impact individual politicians and political parties (McNair, 2000). More precisely, when a flock of reporters release defamatory statements on politicians after conducting an investigation, they can push these politicians away from their platforms.

There are grounds to explain the growth of pack journalism primarily as an expression of changes in the media market – a result of economic factors (McNair, 2000). In fact, it is fair to say that there is a huge economic inefficiency in the practice of pack journalism (Samuelson, 2002). For example, because the majority of reporters were tied up covering the O. J. Simpson trials, the other news of equal or greater importance and interest were not covered (Gordon et al., 1999). Another noticeable economic inefficiency that pack journalism brings to its own media organizations is caused by the weak and limited use of human, technological, and fiscal resources by reporters (Gordon et al., 1999). One logical solution for this economic inefficiency would be, for instance, to rely on the wires for news conferences and other pack events, and delegating their own journalists to dig into other features of a story.

According to all these deprecating commentaries on pack journalism, we can justifiably scrutinize and deem its practice as unethical. Indeed, not only has pack journalism become uncontrollably and perniciously incorporated into conventional political journalism, but it has also contributed to the belief that journalism is less classified as a profession as it was before herds of mimickers invaded our media outlets. Now, journalism is synonymous with performance that is measured by consumer satisfaction, entertaining education (Hartley, 1992), and the commodification of knowledge. Consequently, the core of what journalism should represent, that is, motivation, creativity, independence, privacy, respect, responsibility, economic efficiency, and, above all, truth to readers and viewers, suffer.

Another way to view the unethical nature of pack journalism is by comparing pack journalism’s standards to Social Responsibility Theory. Social Responsibility Theory, according to the Hutchins Commission, expresses and attempts to decree that the press be accountable and publish information to the public in a truthful manner (Lloyd, 1991). In 1947, Time Magazine creator Henry Luce and his Yale University colleague Robert Hutchins formed and established the Hutchins Commission. Robert Hutchins was in fact appointed to be in charge as the head of the Hutchins Commission (Lloyd, 1991). Newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, and other forms of news publications have always been central and vital channels of public information and education. The Hutchins Commission mission essentially argued that unless adequate, reliable, truthful, and total coverage of all major and minor events relevant to all groups are included in all news publications, the public as a whole would inevitably be ignorant, misled, and/or victimized by propaganda.

The Hutchins Commission formed and recommended society’s five foremost expectations of the media as the public believed the media should legitimately operate. The following items are the recommendations according to Hutchins Commission (Lyons, 1947):

1. A truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning.

2. A forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.

3. The projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.

4. The presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society.

5. Full access to the day’s intelligence (p. 1).

From this, it follows that the nature of pack journalism is antithetical to the standards recommended by the Hutchins Commission. As such, pack journalism creates an untruthful or superficial account of the day’s events, a contraposition to what Social Responsibility Theory stipulates.

Despite the high ethical standards that Social Responsibility Theory recommends as to how the media should function, a propitious comment was once made by American journalists Mary Walton and Charles Layton that pack journalism was actually necessary. The two journalists worked and lived in Ecuador for six months. They observed and compared Ecuadorian news coverage with American news coverage. As stated by Walton and Layton (2002),

This statement may be important to consider, especially when a major event happens around the world. It follows that pack journalism can sometimes increase the influence of the independent journalist. When he or she releases an important news story in the United States, other media outlets follow up on it, reproduce it, and try to promote it. Yet, in Ecuador, it does not happen that way. Consequently, an individual journalist might see his or her story vanish immediately because no one propagates it.

Second, in some cases, without pack journalism widespread coverage and dissemination of important news events would be impossible to achieve, and only a handful of news organizations would be apprised of that story and could publish it. Third, because pack journalists can spend large amounts of time together (i.e., on a bus or on a plane), they can develop a sense of solidarity and social support (Bennett, 2003), even if they work for different news organizations. Fourth, the existence of pack journalism as a central element in contemporary political journalism might be correlated to the recent evolutionary increase of reported unethical and illegal behavior in political life (i.e., the Clinton-Lewinski affair, the Al Gore marijuana scandal, etc.). This means that the pervasiveness of pack journalism in this arena is merely a reflection of that unethical and illegal behavior.

Finally, another explanation for the necessity of pack journalism is the competition in the media market, that is, the "struggle for survival." According to Parker (2003), "pack journalism is merely the natural result of competition" (p. 2). If a major newsworthy event has just occurred, almost every news organization will seek out a piece of that story and will go to great lengths to arrive at the scene as early as possible to cover the events that have just unfolded. In any case, pack journalists aggressively seek out widely covered stories for fear of being left out. This means that being late to the scene or failing to cover the details that the early birds gather could signify the difference between success and failure to a news reporter. By the same token, a news reporter can be reprimanded by superiors (i.e. editors, publishers, etc.) for failing to cover the story in correspondence with the pack.

As one can see, although pack journalism is generally considered unethical and denigrating to the media, it may need to be used as a necessary evil to ensure that the general public is made aware of news events and that the new reporters can "survive" by covering the events in common with the other reporters from the pack.

What this paper has demonstrated is that, by the inherent nature of their practice, pack journalists cover the same story as all other journalists do. They cite or draw from the same sources, simultaneously, with the same purpose, and employing the same methods. Liberal bias in worldwide news organizations is real, but pack journalism contributes to a serious contortion of reality, which can only survive through the propensity of some journalists to read only what other journalists write (Parenti, 1993). Because pack journalism is a sloppy and lazy form of newsgathering, and because it is detrimental to the general public, the journalistic world has undergone a fundamental downturn in values (Arant & Meyer, 1998), where writing news for the sake of writing news shrivels and truth withers.

Although there are scholars like Ben-David (2000), Russell (2003), and Kalb (1994) who promote more diversity of people and more originality and creativity of opinions in the news (Mayer, 1993), journalists continue to flock to a single news source like sheep suffering from "groupthink" and a herd mentality. Another point of this paper, then, is to argue in favor of independent reporters who should represent the key members of the media world, as opposed to pack journalists who dehumanize themselves by increasing the commodification, corporatization, and automation of news coverage through their one-dimensional and copycat production. The issue of pack journalism inevitably showcases the inherent conflict between serving the public and serving the market (Bovard, 2007).

What this paper has also emphasized is that some reporters think that pack journalism can be used as a necessary evil. The main reason is that they feel that it provides a protective shield (i.e., social support) and that it is likely to have a negative corollary on independent journalism. Indeed, new reporters can only "survive" by covering stories that are in correspondence with the stories that are released by the other reporters from the pack.

Nevertheless, the media would be well advised to face reality and consider their questionable newsgathering procedures. Therefore, it is of critical importance that news media reports be fair, not biased and skewed. It is also imperative to make reporters disbelieve that pack journalism is rooted in human nature and it is an unavoidable or necessary evil. In evaluating the media’s ethical standards as noted in the recommendations made by the Hutchins Commission (with regard to Social Responsibility Theory), we should strive not to promote unethical media practices and not to scold the news because of those pack journalists (Levy, 1981).

To conclude this paper, there are several areas for future research that we would like to address and suggest for mass media ethics scholars. First, since pack journalists copy off of each other partly because of time constraints, it is not surprising that media technologies are continuously modified, to such a point that they can accelerate the acquisition, quantity, and diversity of news information at an exponential rate. An area of research, then, would be to investigate why such media technological innovations focus the readers’ and viewers’ attention on the repetitious production of pack journalists (i.e., the mass coverage of big scandals like Enron or the Martha Stewart’s trial) and not on other worldwide news reports about which the general public should be informed.

Second, mass media researchers should further use Social Responsibility Theory extensively to evaluate journalists’ own ethical practices. Based on the theory’s premise that the press be accountable and publish information to the public in a truthful manner (Lloyd, 1991), analytical tools which disempower various central elements of pack journalism’s dynamics should be further developed. For instance, it would be interesting to conduct a longitudinal study to determine whether widespread computer submission of news reports by individual journalists throughout the world would increase. By the same token, it would be intriguing to observe whether this database submission process causes a decrease in the usage of pack journalism coverage due to a higher reliance upon AP newswires to fill newspapers or other sources (as opposed to deploying individual news reporters to a crowded pack of other journalists).

Finally, since pack journalism continues to flourish in our society, future researchers should explore ways in which the media can adequately control how and what pack journalists cover in order to maintain veracity in the news they release. In the same train of thought, they should also explore and attempt to identify alternative and feasible methods by which to gather and distribute news. Hopefully, the new global journalist will not be a static and unchanging statue, but a creative and complex figure that will make the media more democratically acceptable.

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Jonathan Matusitz, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida. His academic interests are mass media, new media studies, organizational communication, communication & technology.

Gerald-Mark Breen is a research assistant in the Department of Public Affairs at the University of Central Florida. He specializes in health communication, social policy, and media studies.