Douglas Brinkley, the Rice University professor and historian who is working on a biography of Walter Cronkite, expressed nostalgia for an earlier, more in-the-trenches generation of correspondents who didn’t rely on tweeting and linking to generate content. “I’m not making a judgment,” Professor Brinkley said. “What I don’t like is that before, people would start in foreign bureaus all over the world before making their way to Washington. You would be pushing into your deep 20s and have a really deep global background. What you’ve seen is a devaluation of serious journalism in favor of reporters who are able to create a brand identity.”

Mr. Sullivan, 47, disagreed. “I think they are more talented than the journalists of my generation and less self-important than the boomer generation,” he wrote. “People forget how hard it was to get a platform of any kind in the old days. The gatekeepers were few and strict. Lots of talent never got a chance, and I admire the way these bloggers have opened up the D.C. conversation.”

A Times article on Washington’s new brat pack journalists. I wonder about the conversation’s academic analogue.