When New York mayor and Medford native Michael Bloomberg announced that he was leaving the Republican Party this past week, the political media went bonkers. Would Bloomberg run for president as an independent in '08? Could he win? And how will his still-hypothetical candidacy reshape the race? The New York Daily News offered this: "You couldn't get a much clearer signal Michael Bloomberg is seriously considering a third-party run for president. . . . There's little doubt that he'll seize the opportunity if the race appears viable. Good for him. Good for us."

Amid the hoopla, though, one media outlet demonstrated remarkable restraint: Bloomberg L.P., the financial-media behemoth that was founded by Bloomberg in 1981 and that helped him amass his $5.5 billion personal fortune. The entity includes Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio, and Bloomberg Television, and its majority owner is still none other than Michael Bloomberg. (Surprisingly, no legal arrangement exists mandating Bloomberg's non-involvement with Bloomberg L.P.)

The day after Bloomberg's announcement, for example, a Bloomberg News write-up didn't use the word "president" until the fourth paragraph, and immediately quoted Bloomberg brusquely dismissing such speculation. Later, the story quoted two political analysts, Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg, arguing that a Bloomberg presidential run was hardly a done deal. And as NPR's David Folkenflick subsequently noted, Bloomberg Radio's Money & Politics program spent less than a minute on the implications of the mayor's party switch.

Over the next few months, the journalists of Bloomberg will have plenty of opportunities to prove that they can cover Bloomberg himself - and his campaign, if it comes to that - objectively and aggressively. Which is, of course, a gentle way of saying that this problem isn't going away. Every time Bloomberg News reports on Bloomberg the man, that coverage could help or hinder his political prospects. In fact, the quandary gets thornier: whenever Bloomberg News reports on one of the declared or potential Democratic and Republican presidential candidates - a group of more than 20, if you include Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, and Al Gore - Bloomberg's own political stock could be affected.