Biz media goes gaga for Paulson

Elinore Longobardi of Columbia Journalism Review wonders why the business media, including recent cover stories in Fortune and Bloomberg Markets, are praising Treasury secretary Hank Paulson.

Longobardi writes, “But the fundamental problem with these pieces is deeper than a missed observation or clashing versions of the same person. The underlying problem is that they are a species of the Great Man theory that is all too prominent in the business press. In these stories, Paulson is not just the institutional face of the credit crisis, he’s a kind of stand in for that crisis. Rather than scrutiny of the system, of which Paulson is undoubtedly a key part, it’s Paulson front and center.

“And so, as with any ‘great man’, his story needs bits of background that illustrate the formation of his current character. Each piece falls in line with this model.

“Newsweek even starts to lay out the mythological groundwork in the first paragraph with Paulson ‘the former college-football star’ who is ‘carrying the weight of the troubled markets on his shoulders.’ Thank you, Atlas.”

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