For nearly three decades until his retirement in 1993, John Griffin — who died Sunday night at age 80 — was in charge of the page on which these words appear.

John was a perfect example of the axiom: "Think globally, act locally." He was conversant with global issues and pushed for more news coverage and opinion pieces relating to Asia and the Pacific Islands; he felt (rightly) that U.S. media were too Eurocentric and that, if any U.S. city needed an Asia-oriented view of the world, it was Honolulu.

If you read an editorial concerning Asia during the Griffin era, chances are he wrote it. And he had the credentials. He had done a Peace Corps stint in the Philippines, covered Southeast Asia for The Associated Press and traveled widely in Asia during his years with The Advertiser.

John also cared deeply about Hawai'i and had strong opinions about the issues and personalities of the Islands. He always took the long view, unlike many journalists who have trouble focusing beyond the next deadline, always less than 24 hours away. He recognized the need to place the transitory daily news into the context of longer-term trends and applauded long-term planning efforts in Hawai'i from the Commission on the Year 2000 nearly four decades ago to the recent 2050 Sustainability Plan.

Whether the topic was local, national or global, John was capable of well-reasoned argument, yet always willing to listen to contrary opinions. He was a political liberal, in tune with the general philosophy of these pages during his era, yet his writing always sought balance. Even-tempered, John could "disagree without being disagreeable."

He was a First Amendment absolutist; he felt a responsibility to lay out a well-defined, well-defended opinion, yet was committed to letting opponents have their say, too. In choosing op-ed columns (like this one) and letters to the editor, he went out of his way to publish views counter to The Advertiser's own. In fact, the easiest way to get a letter published in those days was to attack one of the paper's editorial positions.

Most readers don't understand the process that leads to newspaper editorials, the unsigned essays along the left edge of this page. These aren't just the editorial page editor's view, but represent the institutional position of the newspaper itself as expressed through its editorial board.

Producing editorials was, in Griffin's era, a most collegial process. Each day, he chaired a meeting of the editorial board to discuss the news and decide which topics called for an opinion to be rendered. The board members debated, occasionally heatedly, what the paper's position ought to be. Then one member of the board was commissioned to write the editorial for publication.

During that process, John would ably advocate for positions he felt strongly about, but also truly listened to other opinions and worked toward consensus. The final editorial sometimes was at odds with his personal views.

One prominent example from his early years was the war in Vietnam. John's boss, editor-in-chief George Chaplin, recalled later how he and Griffin "debated, never with heat, over policy on Vietnam. John was more dovish than I, and we settled on a middle ground. As time passed, I realized he was right."

Philip Geyelin of The Washington Post once said editorial pages should be "a measured application of reason and logic and documented argument." That was John's style. As an editor, Griffin was always temperate, occasionally keeping the rest of us from going off half-cocked.

He was a calm presence in a stressful newsroom atmosphere. That was true outside the office as well; I don't think I ever saw him blow his top or utter a word in anger. John was a gentleman and a scholar, and I'll miss him.

Gerry Keir worked as an Advertiser journalist for 27 years, serving as editor from 1989 to 1995. During those last years, he and John Griffin served together on the paper's editorial board.

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