Sir Harold Evans, a legendary British-American newspaper editor and publisher, passed away this week due to heart failure, CNN reports.

The respected journalist was employed by Reuters, and the company confirmed his death on Thursday, saying he passed away in New York. 

Evans acquired his first taste of fame while at The Sunday Times, where he served as editor and led the British newspaper's investigative journalists through a series of attention-grabbing exposés and stories surrounding political scandals from 1967 to 1981.

"He set the world's gold standard for journalism in the public interest, exposing deadly corporate secrets and the spy scandal of the century," Reuters said in a statement after his death, referring to a story published by The Sunday Times in 1967 about Kim Philby, the famous British traitor who acted as a double agent for the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Evans was 92 years old.