Media loves the tale of the solitary genius who is smarter than the whole (inherently malevolent) industry - even more so if it's a child. Plus, the problem with the representation of science in media is that the people who write about it don't even fathom how little they actually know.
Nothing new though. Back in the eighties, newspapers here reported how students easily found a fraction that represent Pi exactly , somewhere in the 2000s, there was a report about a school girl who invented a breakthrough cryptography that would revolutionize the internet.