Legendary UK newspaper Sunday Times's editor Harold Evans dies aged 92

Campaigners, journalists and politicians on Thursday paid tribute to the crusading British newspaper editor Harold Evans, after his death in New York aged 92.

Former Sunday Times editor Evans is best remembered for his hard-hitting expose of the birth defects caused by the drug thalidomide in what remains a high watermark for the profession.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself a former journalist and columnist, called him “a true pioneer of investigative journalism”, as others praised his fearless approach.

At the time of his death on Tuesday from congestive heart failure, the charismatic Evans was editor-at-large for the international news agency Reuters.

Evans’ second wife, the publisher Tina Brown, confirmed his death on her Twitter account and called him “the love of my life”.

His several best-selling books included “The American Century” in 1998 and “They Made America” in 2004, the same year he received a knighthood for services to journalism.

Brown was also a respected media boss, rejuvenating Vanity Fair in the 1980s and The New Yorker in the 1990s, with the couple earning a reputation as mainstays of the New York politics and party scenes.