Tom Shales, reports on what goes on behind the scenes--in executive suites of the major networks and cable channels.

Shales is a master of satire and parody of the latest TV effrontery. He grew up in Elgin, Ill., watching TV from Chicago on a 14-inch RCA mahogany console. He never recovered. As co-editor of his high-school newspaper, he appointed himself movie critic and did the same thing at The American University in Washington.

Shales' first job was with radio station WRMN, in Elgin, at the age of 18. He filled the station's AM and FM airwaves as disc jockey, local news reporter, writer and announcer. He later worked with Voice of America as a producer of broadcasts to the Far East.

Shales joined The Washington Post as a writer in the Style section in 1972, was named chief television critic in July 1977 and was appointed TV Editor in June 1979--the year The Washington Post Writers Group began syndicating his column.

He received the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1988. That year, he also won an American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award for his appreciations of famed film and television personalities.

Shales was named "Best Critic Writing for a Newspaper" by the Washington Journalism Review as one of its "Best in the Business" awards in 1986. He was selected as the city's best newspaper reporter by readers of the Washingtonian magazine in 1990. Time magazine says, "Among newspaper critics, Shales is the most admired. ... Shales needles the networks and delights readers." People magazine concludes: "He is the country's best, most engaged and engaging TV critic."

"Tom Shales ... is a national treasure," says Grant Tinker, former NBC executive. He is "hands-down the best ... ever to cast a critical eye on a television show. An observer nonpareil, he's also an imaginative, superior writer, informative and vastly entertaining."

Shales is co-author, with James Andrew Miller, of "Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live" (Little, Brown, 2002). A collection of his television columns, "On the Air," was published in 1982 by Simon & Schuster. "Legends" (Random House, 1989) is a collection of Shales' profiles of America's greatest entertainers.

Shales lives in McLean, Va.