Tom Shales obit

Tom Shales, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Washington Post Critic, Dies at 79

 

He was not on the list.

Tom Shales, a Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic for The Washington Post who spent nearly 40 years at the newspaper, has died. He was 79.

He passed away on Saturday at a hospital in Fairfax County, Virginia, from complications due to COVID-19 and renal failure, his caretaker, Victor Herfurth, told The Post.

Shales began his decades-long career as the chief TV critic for the newspaper in 1977 after spending five years there as a writer for its style section. Over the course of his time there, he became known for his sharp commentary on television, stars, trends, network executives and more.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1988, becoming only the fourth TV reviewer at the time to earn that honor in journalism. He reviewed everything from late night shows to nature documentaries, cable dramas to network sitcoms.

In 2006, Shales took a buyout from The Post but remained on contract with the paper for another four years when he felt like he was edged out, he explained to the Washingtonian at the time.

In addition to his work there, he also wrote for the Huffington Post, TelevisionWeek and Roger Ebert's television and film review website. He and fellow Post journalist James Andrew Miller wrote two books together - Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (2002) and Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN (2011).

Miller took to Twitter on Saturday to remember his long-term collaborator. "Tom Shales passed away this morning," he wrote. "The Pulitzer Prize winning former critic at The Washington Post - and one of the country's most brilliant writers - was 79. I loved him like a brother … he will be missed by many."

Thomas William Shales was born in Elgin, Illinois, on Nov. 3, 1944. He attended a local community college for a brief time and then transferred to American University, where he began his journalism career, becoming the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

He worked as an entertainment editor at the D.C. Examiner in the late '60s and early '70s. After joining the Post as a style writer in 1972, he became the chief TV critic in 1977 and was appointed the newspaper's TV editor in 1979.

Shales never got married and has no immediate survivors.