Newspaper strike leaves voters in the dark

Coverage void means many stumble through a maze of initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5, 1994 -- Hoping to score a knockout punch in the final days of the campaign, politicians have found themselves shadow-boxing in newspaper-dry San Francisco. The coverage void has been especially hard on Democratic candidates locked in tight statewide races, since they traditionally must win big in the Bay Area to offset the more conservative bent in voter-rich Southern California.

The governor's race is a case in point:

Gubernatorial underdog Kathleen Brown clung to that point last week when she stopped by to shake hands and offer words of encouragement to picketing Chronicle and Examiner workers during a campaign swing in San Fransciso.

"As a challenger and as a candidate with a serious message to get out, not having two of the leading papers in Northern California has been a major loss for us," said Brown's spokesman John Whitehurst. "Now we're just trying to meet as many voters one on one as we can, but it's been tough for us."

Political analysts say the virtual print blackout means that voters who traditionally rely on San Francisco newspapers to help them cut through convoluted initiatives and distorted television ads are finding themselves in the dark during the most critical stretch of the campaign.

"It's like knowing that there's a huge event going on that everybody else is watching, that we can't get access to," said San Francisco voter Michael Callaghan. "I use my newspaper as a sort of political scorecard. And right now, all I have is a blank sheet of paper."

While television stations and other newspapers in Northern California have scrambled to fill the void, several stories that are receiving wide play in Southern California have virtually gone unnoticed in the Bay Area. Indeed, late last week, Brown, following up a story broken by the Dallas Morning News, charged that Governor Wilson has been trying to delay the announcement by McDonnell Douglas that the Long Beach-based airline builder is constructing a 3,000-job plant in Texas instead of California.

Wilson's campaign has continued virtually unchecked in the final days and that apparently is having a noticeable effect on statewide voter trends. A KCBS-TV poll released last week in Los Angeles showed that Wilson's lead is widening among likely voters there, a swing apparently matched by GOP internal polls.

"We're observing a phenomenon that we can't really explain, but since the Chronicle and the Examiner went on strike, we have found that our lead is widening," said Wilson campaign spokeswoman Beth Miller. "We don't know if there's any correlation at all, but it's the only thing that's different in the final week -- other than the fact that we don't have as much traveling press on our campaign bus."

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