`These Crowded Circumstances'

Nobody likes pack journalism - not the reporters who are members of the pack, not the objects of the pack's attention and not the readers who deplore the pack's intrusiveness and obtrusiveness even as they stay with the coverage. To distance themselves from the pack, reporters have hit upon the curious rhetorical strategy of writing about it as if they were not a part of it. This article argues that this kind of distanced reflexivity is best understood as a strategic ritual aimed at maintaining the culture of journalism in the face of public disaffection with intrusive reporting and excessive coverage.