I wouldn't call it sensationalist. This is an important paper.
And CS is not particularly unique in hiring people who are popular. A lot of being a good professor is getting gathering money, which enables you to do good work, and brings prestige to the university, and the sad fact is that this is easier to do the more famous you are. Also part of the job is convincing people that you have actually done significant work, and the people who are good at that are usually are well-known.
While it's true that things like blog posts and tweets help drive people to realize this, really IMO most of the work is put in around these things; a good blog post will not replace the other factors in most cases.
And CS is not particularly unique in hiring people who are popular. A lot of being a good professor is getting gathering money, which enables you to do good work, and brings prestige to the university, and the sad fact is that this is easier to do the more famous you are. Also part of the job is convincing people that you have actually done significant work, and the people who are good at that are usually are well-known.
While it's true that things like blog posts and tweets help drive people to realize this, really IMO most of the work is put in around these things; a good blog post will not replace the other factors in most cases.