It is true that Mr. Assange and Mr. Greenwald are activists with the kind of clearly defined political agendas that would be frowned upon in a traditional newsroom. But they are acting in a more transparent age — they are their own newsrooms in a sense — and their political beliefs haven’t precluded other news organizations from following their leads. (In fact, The Times confirmed on Friday that it would work on a series of articles based on the N.S.A. documents with The Guardian.)

Yes, the argumentative Mr. Greenwald and the often obnoxious Mr. Assange don’t just have opinions, they tend to rub our mainstream noses in them. During the course of their collaboration and coverage of the WikiLeaks investigation, Mr. Assange and Bill Keller, then the executive editor of The Times, traded some rather memorable barbs. (I understand some of the antagonism: I was at a very proper lunch in the English countryside with Mr. Assange and he announced to the table that he thought the primary requirements for being a journalist at The New York Times were the ability to lie and obfuscate. Why thank you, Mr. Assange. Now could you pass the salad, please?)

In a phone interview, Mr. Keller suggested that he “let Julian get under my skin a little more than I should have.” But he said that Mr. Assange should be afforded the protections given to any journalist.

Mr. Keller said the relationship with sources and competitors on coverage was always fraught with peril, but technology has created significant disruption to both the business model and the practice of journalism.

“Stuff that used to happen in a sedate place with a kind of Robert’s Rules of Order have now turned into the World Wrestling Federation, with everybody piling into the ring and throwing punches,” he said. “There has been a tendency for people used to a more decorous world to bristle at the characters who have acquired prominence in this new world.”

The reflex is understandable, but by dwelling on who precisely deserves to be called a journalist and legally protected as such, critics within the press are giving the current administration a justification for their focus on the ethics of disclosure rather than the morality of government behavior.

“I think the people in our business who are suspicious of Glenn Greenwald and critical of David Miranda are not really thinking this through,” said Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian. “The governments are conflating journalism with terrorism and using national security to engage in mass surveillance. The implications just in terms of how journalism is practiced are enormous.”