Pulitzer Prize-Winning TV Critic Tom Shales Dies at Age 79
Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic Tom Shales died on Saturday in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to his caretaker Victor Herfurth, Shales passed away after experiencing complications from covid and renal failure. He was 79.
In 1977, Shales became The Washington Post’s chief television critic, and in 1988 won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, making him the fourth tv reviewer to ever win the award. His columns never pulled their punches, but Shales didn't concern himself with the ire they’d garner from whiny television executives. “People who respect TV are the ones I respect,” he said. “It’s the ones who wipe their feet on it whom I probably write nasty things about.”
The former president of CBS News Bill Leonard once told Time magazine that Shales used “the English language like a sword to punch holes in whatever he feels like punching holes in.”