NEWSWATCH by Thomas Griffith: America's Own Cult of Personality

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Fashions in public curiosity do change: once biographies were moral, meant to inspire emulation, as in the lives of saints or successful businessmen. Then came debunking journalism. Now, in a time of uncertain standards, the narrative style is neutral, deadpan: intending neither praise nor censure, but prepared to settle for provocative quotes and a plausible likeness. Readers too seem less judgmental, interested less in someone's character than in his or her "life-style." That mood could change, and if it did, so would the journalism. But an interest in people won't go away: it is as old as Plutarch, and apt to survive as long as humans do.