Tom Shales, a Pulitzer Prize-winning tv critic for The Washington Submit who spent practically 40 years on the newspaper, has died. He was 79.
He handed away on Saturday at a hospital in Fairfax County, Virginia, from problems as a result of COVID-19 and renal failure, his caretaker, Victor Herfurth, advised The Submit.
Shales started his decades-long profession because the chief TV critic for the newspaper in 1977 after spending 5 years there as a author for its type part. Over the course of his time there, he grew to become identified for his sharp commentary on tv, stars, tendencies, community executives and extra.
He gained the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1988, turning into solely the fourth TV reviewer on the time to earn that honor in journalism. He reviewed all the pieces from late evening exhibits to nature documentaries, cable dramas to community sitcoms.
In 2006, Shales took a buyout from The Submit however remained on contract with the paper for an additional 4 years when he felt like he was edged out, he defined to the Washingtonian on the time.
Along with his work there, he additionally wrote for the Huffington Submit, TelevisionWeek and Roger Ebert’s tv and movie evaluate web site. He and fellow Submit journalist James Andrew Miller wrote two books collectively — Dwell From New York: An Uncensored Historical past of Saturday Evening Dwell (2002) and These Guys Have All of the Enjoyable: Contained in the World of ESPN (2011).
Miller took to Twitter on Saturday to recollect his long-term collaborator. “Tom Shales handed away this morning,” he wrote. “The Pulitzer Prize profitable former critic at The Washington Submit — and one of many nation’s most sensible writers — was 79. I beloved him like a brother … he will likely be missed by many.”
Thomas William Shales was born in Elgin, Illinois, on Nov. 3, 1944. He attended a area people school for a short time after which transferred to American College, the place he started his journalism profession, turning into the editor-in-chief of the scholar newspaper.
He labored as an leisure editor on the D.C. Examiner within the late ’60s and early ’70s. After becoming a member of the Submit as a mode author in 1972, he grew to become the chief TV critic in 1977 and was appointed the newspaper’s TV editor in 1979.
Shales by no means obtained married and has no instant survivors.