HOLGER Jensen, whose world affairs commentaries appear periodically on this page, lives 9,100 feet up the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, nearly 4,000 feet higher than the Mile High City of Denver, to which he drives every morning after the rush hour. Covering the world from 9,100 feet
From his base as international editor for the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's largest paper, he writes three commentaries a week that are distributed to over 400 newspapers.
He prepares himself for the day by getting up at 5:30 a.m., hooking into the Internet and scanning the news in about 25 newspapers worldwide. He chooses these from an available list of 400, including the Star-Bulletin.
The Scripps-Howard organization, which publishes the Rocky Mountain News and distributes his column through its syndicate, had suggested he base himself in Washington, D.C., but he chose Denver. He's an outdoorsman at heart and he wanted his two daughters to have Colorado residence to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Scripps-Howard would be unlikely to make this deal with you or me, but Jensen comes pretty close to being a citizen of the world who brings a lot more background to his writing than you or I will ever accumulate.
He was born in Shanghai in 1944, son of the Danish consul there and a Russian countess. When the Communists moved into Shanghai the Jensens relocated to Africa, where his father went into business. Jensen was schooled in South Africa, graduated from the University of Capetown, and speaks Russian, Arabic and bad Spanish as well as English.
He started his journalism career with the Associated Press, which sent him to Moscow, Beirut and Vietnam, among other assignments. He also has headed the Southeast Asia bureau of Newsweek, worked for Maclean's magazine in Canada, took time out to be a Montana rancher, and was with a private firm giving business executives evaluations of business risks in foreign countries.
He particularly fascinates me because he helps establish a point that is important to us in Hawaii: You can be a world-watcher from just about any place these days. Jensen is just as critical as are foreign affairs buffs here about the paucity of foreign news in local papers. He thinks readers get only 1 or 2 percent of what they need.
I'm an ex-editor who disgrees with him. I think local news has to be the mainstay of local papers. However, we need experienced observers like him to give our readers at least a sample of what's out there and maybe whet their appetites to get more depth elsewhere.
Jensen is one of about 30 different writers available to the Star-Bulletin through syndicates. They produce nearly 100 columns a week from which our editors choose 12 for publication, two a day, Monday through Saturday. The top of our editorial page goes to local commentators, like me. The two columns below the cartoon are chosen from the big pool. Jensen gets chosen several times a month.
WE all wish it could be more, but now have the satisfaction of knowing that, even in Hawaii, as in Denver, "more" is out there for those who want it. We have instant TV news on CNN, plus the Internet, same-day availability of USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, short delays on a number of other papers and the weekly and monthly magazines. We are no information desert.
Jensen's ability to scan the world from high in the Rockies shows it can be scanned just as well from Hawaii. He ought to hearten businesses who have been put off from locating in Hawaii because we are too remote.
Henry Kaiser argued years ago that think industries could favor Hawaii because of the attractive surroundings they can offer their employees. Denver is immensely attractive for its own sort of reasons. But we have our advantages, too.