Reporters Put Greenspan Legacy into Context

Business reporters are running down their list of superlatives in describing the stature of Alan Greenspan, who steps down today as Federal Reserve chairman after nearly 20 years.

A living legend. A wielder of more power than the presidents he served. Greatest central banker who ever lived. A cultural icon, the face of historic economic expansion.

Perhaps the first Federal Reserve official to be a household name, Greenspan's last hurrah has rallied business reporters in covering what effect he's had on the nation's economy.

One writer, Barbara Hagenbaugh of USA Today, puts that effect - and the superlatives - into perspective. "Although Greenspan wasn't the sole force behind the economy's success, the 79-year-old gets much of the credit," she wrote. "That has in part created a larger-than-life, oracle-like persona for a man who once dreamed of being a baseball player and later trained at New York 's renowned Juilliard School of music."

Business reporters were left trying to explain, and make relevant to regular readers, Greenspan's legacy. Some stories summed it up through his economic policies. Others decreed it was his transparency, as he was the first to reveal the Fed's complex innards to average investors. And still others said it was his unique way with words, climaxed by his now-marquee phrase, "irrational exuberance," during the technology boom.

"Well aware of the gravity of his words on the U.S. and global stages, he moved nimbly between sublime clarity and maddening obfuscation, which - along with his bottle-thick glasses - scarcely concealed his wry sense of humor," wrote Michael Wallace of BusinessWeek.

That said, many stories today were business as usual, partly because his farewell coincided with a Federal Open Market Committee meeting, where members voted in another interest rate hike.

Plus, publications had already run lengthy profiles of the chairman when he announced his retirement last year, or when his successor, Ben Bernanke, was nominated in November. Bernanke was confirmed by the Senate today.

But among the wire copy and salutes in editorial pages, readers can find Greenspan chronicles in international newspapers, from The Toronto Star to The Australian Age, which shows the man's global reach. That should factor into coverage about his reach within U.S. borders as well.

Context is king, however, in this kind of professional synopsis. To describe the significance of Greenspan's decisions, Hagenbaugh described the two recessions during his 18-year tenure as the "mildest since World War II." And The Miami Herald searched the previous 18 years, pre-Greenspan, and found four much more severe downturns.

Reporters at The Detroit Free Press looked at factors beyond even Greenspan's control, and what role they played in his term. "Critics say he simply got lucky during a tenure shaped by four presidents, the fall of the Soviet Union and rising productivity," according to the story.

In fact, amid the exaltations, business reporters were careful to add those criticisms. For one, they wrote, Greenspan didn't do enough to prevent the technology bubble from bursting. And he embroiled himself into politics too often, supporting tax cuts and Social Security privatization.

The Miami Herald adds a few grains of salt to the champagne toast with a quote from a Hofstra University economics professor. "He's the smaller human being behind the curtain, not the infallible wizard," the professor says. "I do think that his legacy is not as unblemished as his reputation would lead you to think."

Take this opportunity to look to the future as well. What does Greenspan's saga forecast for Bernanke, and the kind of legacy he will begin at the Fed tomorrow?

Perhaps Danielle DiMartino, a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, said it best: "That question awaits not its architect, but his successor, Ben Bernanke. And that is just a fact of life for the man charged with the hardest job on the planet."