My mind always creates an image of a person I'm reading about. If there are no physical characteristics, it actually makes reading harder. Fiction writers generally know how to paint this picture (except for the very bad ones), but in journalism it's not a given.

So I'm glad that long-form non-fiction authors expend a few words on this. Height + "sexy librarian" is certainly not the most elegant formulation, but it's enough to avoid the frustrating blankness of an unbuilt narrative actor.