First, I find it totally ironic that the WSJ should publish an opinion column calling for more investigative power on the part of the media in general, and blaming the media (which I'm pretty sure the WSJ is a member of) for being an enabler for Eliot Spitzer. In particular, this line just produced gales of laughter at the Shaw breakfast table:
Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keeping tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the prosecutor, who can use his awesome state power to punish, even destroy, private citizens.
Not because I disagree with it, but because it's printed in the WSJ, who, I am pretty sure, has a different editorial take on the matter if you substitute "business" for public officials, but that's not really my point.
Setting aside the irony, there is an important point made here -- that journalists make the same mistake that everyone does by ordering the universe too closely into archetypes and sticking with those assigned labels for people and things, even when the facts change dramatically. Nassim Nicholas Taleb touches on this point in his book "The Black Swan," and politics in particular is littered with examples. It's a powerful tool in communications for sure -- if a company or individual is able to assume a certain position (scrappy upstart, responsible citizen, innovator), then it's easy to use shorthand to talk about/build the mystique and image.
The dark side of this, again from a communications perspective, is that archetypes are inherently fragile. Image is built over time, and can be pretty resilient. Images built on archetypes aren't. As Spitzer is seeing, and others (Enron/Ken Lay) have discovered, perception built on an archetype can be shattered by a single event that calls into question their foundation. Sans foundation, the entire image crumbles.
Building an image around an archetype is an easy start or quick fix -- but it's not a sustainable strategy.