Bob Jones

Bob Jones, a hard-charging newspaper and television journalist who was a familiar face in TV news for over two decades in Hawaii, died at his Diamond Head home Monday.

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

“He will be missed. He was definitely one of a kind,” said Jim Manke, former assignment editor and news director at KGMB, where Jones was a top reporter and news anchor.

In recent years Jones was probably best known for his highly opinionated weekly columns at MidWeek and later his internet blog, which he steadfastly worked on until the day he died.

“His body was giving out, but his mind was very strong,” Fawcett said Wednesday.

Jones, originally from Ohio, began his journalism career as a police reporter for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Then, after serving a three-year European tour in the Air Force, he 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 assignment reporter and then as its military editor.

He 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.

On his return to Hawaii, Jones was hired by KGMB and was later nabbed as a correspondent in Vietnam and Laos by NBC News.

When he came back to Honolulu, Jones anchored the news at KGMB until 1994. Along the way, he helped create some significant news shows and documentaries and won several Emmy awards and a Peabody Award.

“He was the consummate journalist,” former KGMB colleague Chuck Parker said. “He was always looking for a story. It didn’t matter what it was or where it was. And he was a skilled writer. He could take mundane copy and make it sing.”

Former KGMB reporter Leslie Wilcox described Jones as Hawaii’s top journalist in the golden age of television.

“Those were the days before cable and internet, and Channel 9 had a huge audience,” she said. “It was a pleasure seeing him in action.”

There was a time in the 1970s when Jones might have been best known for his end-of-show antics with co-anchor Tim Tindall and sports anchor Joe Moore.

“They could get pretty outrageous,” Manke recalled. “One night they jumped a motorcycle over the news desk.”

Manke said Jones, as a reporter, had an incredible knack for seeing the meat of a subject and being able to quickly turn it around into a understandable short-form story perfect for television.

“He could turn a story on a dime,” added Parker. “He could come in at 10 (minutes) to 5 (p.m.) and turn the lead story. He knew what it was in his head. He never missed a time slot.”

Former KGMB reporter Bambi Weil said Jones helped her and other green reporters at KGMB improve their craft.

“The guy was wonderful, and always encouraging” said Weil, who went on to become a Circuit Court judge. “He was a truth-teller and a shining light. It is his legacy at a time when the network television news is often criticized for lack of integrity.”

Dan Boylan, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii West-Oahu, helped anchor election nights with Jones for more than a dec­ade on KGMB, developing a friendship along the way.

Boylan said Jones’ knowledge about the Vietnam War was important to Hawaii.

“Vietnam was with us constantly. So having a guy like Bob talking about the war … added significantly to his work as a journalist,” Boylan said.

“Hawaii was very much influenced by the people and the soldiers and sailors who were going to war, and Bob had that kind of credibility. Bob grew up with the military. The war in Vietnam was our generation’s war. He covered it. Bob had been there. He commented on things that happened that day, and that is a part of Hawaii we tend to overlook. Vietnam affected Hawaii greatly,” he said.

Jones helped KGMB land Boylan for election-night political analysis.

“On election nights we had a heck of a good time and I think we were better than the other channels. He was truly a pro. A good writer, he knew the territory. He was of the best of the lot as a news anchor. Bob was strong enough and capable enough he could handle news all by himself,” he said.

“We worked together very, very well. After the polls closed on election nights Bob and I would always have a beer or two or three or four, and he was a fun guy. We would be at the Columbia Inn and people would always come up to Bob. He was good to people.”

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

climate change

11/11/21 - CHINA and the US vowed to work together to slow global warming, issuing a surprise joint statement Wednesday that injects new momentum into the last days of global climate negotiations. The deal also marks a rare moment of cooperation between superpowers locked in geopolitical rivalry and who seemed at odds for most of the two-week talks in Glasgow, Scotland.

The two sides agreed to boost their efforts to cut emissions, including by tackling methane and illegal deforestation, China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua told reporters. They will establish a working group to increase ac-tion in the 2020s — a key decade — which will meet in the first half of next year. His US counterpart John Kerry said that the group will focus on “concrete” measures.

11/9/21 - Tuvalu Prime Minister gives speech standing in water

11/5/21 - More than 40 countries pledged to phase out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in a deal announced Thursday at the United Nations climate summit that prompted Alok Sharma, the head of the conference, to proclaim “the end of coal is in sight.”

But several of the biggest coal consumers were notably absent from the accord, including China and India, which together burn roughly two-thirds of the world’s coal, as well as Australia, the world’s 11th-biggest user of coal and a major exporter.  The United States, which still generates about one-fifth of its electricity from coal, also did not sign the pledge.

The decision by the United States to abstain appeared to be driven by American politics.  President Biden’s domestic agenda is split between two pieces of major legislation that have been pending on Capitol Hill and that hinge on the support of Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia. Mr. Manchin’s state is rich in coal and gas, the senator has financial ties to the coal industry and he is sharply opposed to any policy that would harm fossil fuels.

4/18/21 - U.S. and China to cooperate on climate change

Musk offers $6 billion to solve world hunger

Last week, the director of the United Nation's World Food Programme said if the world's top billionaires just donated a fraction of their worth, millions of people who are at risk of starving to death can be saved. Elon Musk, the second wealthiest person in the world, said he'd give up some of his wealth – only if he knows exactly where the money is going.

David Beasley, director of the World Food Programme, said on CNN last week that a "one-time" donation from the top 400 billionaires, whose net worths are ever growing, in the U.S. could help save the lives of 42 million people this year. 

"The world's in trouble and you're telling me you can't give me .36% of your net worth increase to help the world in trouble, in times like this?" he said. "What if it was your daughter starving to death? What if it was your family starving to death? Wake up, smell the coffee, and help."

Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX who has an estimated net worth of $151 billion, according to Forbes, replied to a tweet questioning the group's figures. "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it," Musk wrote. "But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent."

Beasley said the organization has systems in place for transparency and open source accounting. "Your team can review and work with us to be totally confident of such," he replied.

Beasley also responded to a question about the group's existing spending, including $8.4 billion in 2020. "The $8.4B you refer to covers what we needed to reach 115 million people in 2020 with food assistance," he said. "We need $6B plus NOW on top of our existing funding requirements due to the perfect storm from the compounding impact of Covid, conflict and climate shocks." 

He also shared CBS News' article, which explains how the current hunger crisis is a "toxic cocktail" of conflict, climate change, disasters, structural poverty and inequality. COVID-19 has only made it worse and on its website, the program says it needs $6 billion to avert worldwide famine this year. 

"6B will not solve world hunger, but it WILL prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation. An unprecedented crisis and a perfect storm due to Covid/conflict/climate crises," Beasley said in another tweet.