Longtime Hawaii newspaper and television journalist Bob Jones died at his Diamond Head home Monday.

The cause of death was heart failure, according to his wife, Denby Fawcett. He was 85.

Jones was a familiar face to many in Hawaii as a KGMB news anchor and NBC News foreign correspondent.

He began his journalism career as a police reporter for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Then, after serving a three-year European tour in the Air Force, Jones worked at newspapers in Europe before landing back in the states at the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal.

Jones moved to Hawaii in 1963 to work for the Honolulu Advertiser, first as a general reporter and then as its military editor.

Jones would make his mark reporting on the Vietnam War. He accompanied the Kaneohe 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines when they went into Phu Bai, Vietnam, in 1964. A year later he was embedded with the 25th Infantry Division, which had units in Cu Chi and Pleiku.

Upon his return to Hawaii, Jones was hired by KGMB before becoming an NBC News correspondent in Vietnam and Laos.

Jones would return to Honolulu to anchor the news at KGMB until 1994.

Jones would go on to write an opinion column for MidWeek and work on TV documentaries, winning a prestigious George Foster Peabody award.

In the final year of his life, he wrote a daily opinion column in a blog he named, “The Bob Jones Report: Red Hot Opinions Erupting From Diamond Head.”

Jones is survived by his wife Denby Fawcett, daughter Brett Jones, son-in-law Michael Goldman, grandson, Miles Alexander Goldman-Jones and brothers Ken and Tom Jones.