Truth be told, it's been tough month for many hedge funds. But when you are one of the biggest names in the industry, the publicity and media coverage will be a lot worse than for lesser fund managers.

And so it goes for John Paulson, who been at the peak of the industry since 2007, when he earned $3.7 billion personally in one year. This year, he has stumbled in some of his funds--so far anyway. The Paulson Advantage is down about 12.3 percent this year, while the leveraged version, the Paulson Advantage Plus fund, is down nearly 20 percent. But Fortune notes that it's not all bad news when it comes to his performance in 2011, which suggests some of the negative media attention has been overblown.

"Less attention has been paid to the other half of Paulson's $37 billion empire, which has not, as the blogosphere might say, hit the wall. According to investor reports and people close to the fund, Paulson International is up 3.4 percent year-to-date, Paulson Credit Opportunities is up 5 percent, and Paulson Recovery is up just about a percent. These aren't strikingly big numbers (not in the way that down 18 percent grabs your attention), but given that the average hedge fund is down 1.2 percent so far this year, according to Hedge Fund Research, they're actually pretty decent."

A lot of could happen in the second half of the year. Recall that last year, Paulson's funds staged an impressive rally to save the year. 

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