Pulitzer Prize-Winning TV Critic Tom Shales Dies at Age 79 [View all]

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Pulitzer Prize-Winning TV Critic Tom Shales Dies at Age 79
FAREWELL SPECIAL
In more than 40 years reviewing television, he never pulled his punches.
Edith Olmsted
Breaking News Intern
Updated Jan. 14, 2024 3:58AM EST / Published Jan. 13, 2024 12:32PM EST


Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic Tom Shales died on Saturday in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to his caretaker Victor Herfurth, Shales died after experiencing complications from COVID-19 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 win the award. His columns never pulled their punches, but Shales didn’t concern himself with the ire they’d attract 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.”

Shales took a buyout from the Post in 2006, but remained on contract for another four years.

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