I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker writer. And not just because he’s followed my hoped-for career path (Washington Post to The New Yorker, with a little Canadian flava along the way) — he’s an intellectually interesting writer who does great profiles.

He touched up a bit of a fuss earlier this month, when he gave a speech at Harvard saying most profiles are shallow and awful. Gladwell said journalists fool themselves into thinking they know more about their subjects’ inner lives than they really do, and that their tendency to play “mini-shrink” makes him doubt the very legitimacy of writing standard profiles.

All interesting stuff to someone in my line of work, but here’s the key: look at the guy’s hair! That’s the best journalist hair I’ve ever seen! (For context, this is what he looked like on his recent book jacket.) I aspire to that sort of journofro.

27 November 2002

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