'THE ENRON TEMPLATE': A good piece today in the "National Review" on how the media framed the Enron debacle:

One of the reasons why Enron got so much play in the media is that it fit neatly into a standard template for reporters covering the story. It went something like this. Big businesses hate government regulation because it prevents them from making large profits. Enron is a big business that gave campaign contributions to the Republican Party. Therefore, Republicans were responsible for its collapse because they oppose government regulation. As simplistic as this is, it is clear that virtually all press coverage of Enron, at least in the beginning, followed this script. It doesn't seem to have occurred to most reporters that Republicans might support free-market policies simply because they think they are the right ones to follow. Thus, when Republicans resisted imposition of price controls on energy last summer, the media implied that this was only because Enron gave them campaign funds. The idea that Republicans might oppose price controls because of their unbroken record of failure was never seriously considered by most reporters covering Enron.