Sharks tend to be solitary creatures, but blood in the water can draw them from a long distance away. Sometimes, when a number of sharks are consuming the same prey, they can be gripped by a kind of hysteria in which they frantically attack their food, each other, and anything else that may happen by. Such a display of mindless bloodlust is known as a "feeding frenzy." And according to William Safire, this expression was first applied to reporters in 1977, in a speech given by Gerald L. Warren, editor of the San Diego Union. Warren compared the overly aggressive tactics of some journalists to "sharks in a feeding frenzy." Today, the term usually refers to the covering of a story by a large number of reporters, who do their work aggressively, intrusively, persistently, and, in some cases, recklessly.

A media feeding frenzy usually stems...