Jonathan M. Storm, 78, influential television critic; kind, sardonic curmudgeon; bon vivant; gambler; devoted husband; and a man who loved life, his family and his many friends, died Aug. 4, 2025, in Red Bank, peacefully, of complications from the treatment of metastasized melanoma, with which he had lived with gracefully, enthusiastically and appreciatively for almost six years.
He was a very funny man, a generous mentor, and a precise wordsmith who would have loved editing down the immense first paragraph of this obituary.
Storm became a television critic at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the late 1980s. It was, as he noted in his farewell column when retiring from The Inquirer in 2011, the dawn of reality TV and shortly before the arrival of landmark shows like “The Simpsons,” “Seinfeld,” “Northern Exposure,” “Law & Order” and, eventually, “Survivor,” “The Wire,” “The Sopranos,” “The West Wing,” and “Six Feet Under,” to name a few. Storm was there for all of this, espousing fiercely, and with a sharp sense of humor, the belief that the art form of television deserved serious thought and criticism.
“I think he accepted a responsibility to write about television in an elevated way,” said his fellow television critic David Walker of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Storm played a leading role in the Television Critics Association and in its biannual TV Tour in Los Angeles and was noted for a combination of playfulness and journalistic rigor. As a reporter, said Walker, “He was the perfect combination of sweet and sharp as a knife,” one who prided himself on asking the intentionally provocative but humorous question.
Pop culture writer Will Harris recalls that at a celebrity press conference, Storm asked a panel of Kardashians: “Who are you, and why should I care about you?”
He once asked rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who had recently begun taking television roles: “What makes you think you can act?”
Television critic David Bianculli, a frequent presence on NPR’s Fresh Air and professor of television studies at Rowan University, was at The Inquirer when Storm stepped into the role of critic. The TV Tour, said Bianculli, often meant 12-hour days of TV industry and celebrity press conferences punctuated by parties.
“Jon reveled in every bit of that,” said Bianculli. “He asked questions that delighted other critics and sometimes infuriated his subjects. He enjoyed his off hours more than anyone I ever saw on press tours. His luggage included golf clubs. He was determined to enjoy himself.”
While he leveled his incisive gaze on the industry on behalf of his readers, he also mentored younger TV writers and others who relied upon him for wisdom and fun counsel.
Storm’s journalistic roots were at the Rutland Herald in Vermont, then considered one of America’s best small-town papers and a starting point for young journalists. He lived in the hills and covered selectmen’s and school board meetings and an early campaign of an upstart named Bernie Sanders.
He said that the Herald was where he learned the role of the hard-nosed journalist.I n the newsroom, as everywhere in his career, they called him “Stormy,” and he became city editor. Rutland was also where he met his future wife, Kathleen Pottick, whom he loved deeply from the start.
He moved to the Detroit Free Press when Pottick was earning her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. In Detroit, he rose to become Associate Sunday Editor, and also found time to become The Anonymous Gourmet, reviewing restaurants for the newspaper, incognito.
Peggy Castine, who worked with Storm as an editor at the Free Press, remembered that he stuck out in a newsroom full of Midwesterners because his East Coast manner was different, but also, she said, because of his intelligence and talent: “He was just so sharp, a fine copy editor.”
“The Anonymous Gourmet was perfect for him because it had a little theatricalness to it,” she said.
“What a one of kind he was. There was nobody like him.”
“He loved fine dining, but he also loved dive bars. He covered the whole spectrum of having fun and learning,” Castine said.
From the Free Press he went to The Inquirer when Pottick began teaching at Rutgers. He held a variety of editing jobs, including editing TV critics, before landing the TV critic job, after a tryout, an unusual step for someone who had been an editor.
He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize with reporter Stephen Seplow for a year-long series about the effects of television on culture.
Storm was also a gourmet, a frequent visitor to Las Vegas, a golfer, and a dedicated gambler, including on golf games he was in. He once bet that another player couldn’t par a hole and then refused to pay when the player took fewer strokes than par to put the ball in, his friend, Jeffrey Spitz, a Los Angeles attorney, remembers. “Our bet was that you’d par the hole and you didn’t,” Storm said.
If a celebrity was involved in a golf game, “He was not in awe,” said Spitz. “He dealt with them more as another human being. He was interested in the human side of them.”
His farewell column in The Inquirer ended with the line: “It was a tremendous pleasure serving you.”
Jonathan Morris Storm was born April 16, 1947, in New York, the son of T. Walton and Martha Louise Morris Storm. He grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, graduated from St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island in 1965, and from Williams College in 1969 with a degree in English. He worked for a summer at the Bennington (Vermont) Banner and then taught English for a year at Appleton Academy in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. He started his full-time journalism career at the Rutland Herald in 1970, moved to the Detroit Free Press in 1976 and then to the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1982.
He and Kathleen, who were married Oct. 13, 1979, lived in Ringoes for 40 years, a rural respite from their busy professional lives. They moved to Red Bank in 2024.
Storm is survived by his wife, Kathleen J. Pottick, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Social Work, Rutgers University; brother Derek W. Storm (Cynthia Gosset), nephew Jeffrey W. Storm and niece Linda E. Storm, all of Seattle, Washinston; brother-in-law Bryan V. Gantt (Lorelle A.P. Gantt) and nephew Dylan V. Gantt, all of Atlanta, Georgia; niece Courtney A. Gantt of Raleigh, North Carolina; and many friends, neighbors and newspaper colleagues.
Donations in Jonathan Storm’s name may be made to St. George’s School, Advancement Office, financial aid fund, 372 Purgatory Road, Middletown, R.I. 02842; and Save the Children, Attn: Gift Processing, 501 Kings Highway E., Suite 400, Fairfield, CT 06825, or via the memorial gift page on the Save the Children website.
A celebration of his life will be held at a date to be determined.
The article originally appeared in the August 21 – 28, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
