“Josh told me you’ve got to find things you’re passionate about, because nobody’s going to hire anybody who doesn’t have knowledge of a particular subject and doesn’t show passion,” Mr. Krohn said. He hopes that his straight reporting can obliterate his mini-pundit years. “I’d like to get a staff job,” he said, “so I can just write and write and write and write and write every day and bury that under everything.”

While Mr. Krohn’s professional freelance efforts so far have been remarkable for a college freshman, his attempts to bury his past have occasionally faltered. Rule of thumb: Whenever a new kid emerges on the political scene — say, the Indiana 13-year-old who recently drew attention for calling Rush Limbaugh’s show to affirm that man-made global warming is a hoax — a tweet about “the next @JonathanLKrohn” isn’t far behind. In response, Mr. Krohn tweeted: “What is the statute of limitations on me being a punchline? Two? Three? Four? Five more years?”

After a mostly cordial experience covering the National Review Institute Summit for The Atlantic in January, his return in March to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the scene of his breakout speech at 13, was unnerving. During a loud but friendly hallway argument with Jamie Weinstein, of The Daily Caller — Mr. Krohn had found comments by the former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey to be “extremely racist” toward Muslims — 10 or so bloggers, mostly from Breitbart.com, circled him and began questioning him about his then-and-now politics.

“Two people mocked his clothes,” wrote Chris Moody of Yahoo! News, “and one cursed at him. (Krohn cursed right back.)” Mr. Weinstein tried several times to get them to lay off. Toward the end of the confrontation, one woman suggested that he go get an education: “I would like to recommend ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” she said.