The Viewers’--and Voters’--Verdict : . . . and From Mar Vista

At 7:30 p.m. election night--half an hour before polls closed on the West Coast--NBC’s Tom Brokaw announced that George Bush had won the race for President. That was exactly what Bob Newlan, a film and TV sound editor and father of two young children, had been worried about earlier that day.

“It’s a big disservice to the voters on the West Coast,” said the 32-year-old Newlan, who describes himself as a moderate liberal. Newlan’s great-aunt, Ann Deckman, was just as angry about the three networks’ decisions to project a winner: “It’s awful that they tell you who won when the polls haven’t closed.”

Newlan and his wife, Corby Arthur, had invited Deckman, their cousin Scott Becker and his fiance Jennifer Bell and three neighbors into their modest Mar Vista home Tuesday night to watch the election returns, and to discuss their views of the media coverage of the campaign. Four-year-old Joshua and 20-month-old Sami raced across the hardwood floors of the living room where the group sat, eating pizza and watching the results roll in.

For the most part, this was Michael Dukakis country: An ethnic mosaic of working-class homeowners and young, upwardly mobile families seeking affordable housing live side by side in neighborhoods to the southeast of Santa Monica. Newlan’s and Arthur’s home--a Honda sits in the driveway, a baby seat stands in the front yard, toys clutter the bedrooms--is flanked by the houses of Hispanic and Asian families. Dukakis campaign signs dotted the block.

But Mar Vista’s Democrats can be relatively conservative, and the neighborhood has some Republicans: Joining the family Tuesday night were Christopher and Josefa Carrillo, who moved to the United States 21 years ago from their native Cuba. They intended to vote for Bush from the outset, and never waivered.

Despite their many political differences, the group’s opinions of TV’s coverage of the campaign were strikingly similar: They want reporters to spend more time challenging the claims of candidates--and less time predicting winners and broadcasting the results of public opinion polls.

“The media should be an objective observer,” said Becker. “Instead, they create the news. Polls are not news.” Becker added that “there is too much attention paid to media watching the media. I think these layers of media distance the candidates and issues from the voters.”

Becker, a Brentwood resident who publishes Option, a magazine about alternative music, expressed disgust with the string of candidate “photo opportunities” that have become the keystone of TV’s campaign coverage. He said he relied on newspapers and magazines--not television--for his information about the two candidates.

But Becker did watch the televised debates between the two presidential candidates, concluding that those sessions--like other TV coverage--came up short. “The debates were just a test of how the candidates can field questions, deflect criticism and steer the answer around to what they want,” Becker said.

Newlan said he would like to see a debate format that enables reporters to ask more aggressive questions. “There was no real way to nail down someone if they were being evasive or equivocating,” he said.

In particular, Newlan said, Dukakis should have been pressed harder on why he opposes the death penalty, while Bush should have been forced to explain his choice of Dan Quayle as vice president, “when it was obvious to everyone that it was a bizarre choice.”

Arthur, one of the staunchest Dukakis supporters at the gathering, insisted that the media shirked their duty to raise--and answer-- questions about Bush’s role in the Iran-Contra affair.

“I wished reporters would have done more to expose Bush,” says Arthur, who worked as a department store buyer until quitting to become a full-time mother. “I feel he didn’t get enough of an inquiry.”

Peter Fonda-Bonardi, a neighbor who works as a computer programmer for Los Angeles County, said TV news reporters should have focused more attention on unearthing misleading claims in the candidates’ campaign ads. “The real failure in TV’s case was to view the media product itself as something to be investigated,” said Fonda-Bonardi (no relation to the acting family).

“The media should have picked up the campaign commercials and investigated their claims,” he added. “I would hope that the press would deal as aggressively as possible in unmasking lies.”

Routine broadcasts of public opinion polls during the campaign, Fonda-Bonardi said, “are an easy substitute for thoughtful discussion of the issues.”

The Carrillos--he works for a telephone company and she is a housewife--were more satisfied by the media’s coverage, including the news reports they watched on L.A.’s two major Spanish-language stations, Channels 34 and 52. After living under Cuba’s Communist regime, Christopher Carrillo said, he welcomed the free debate in the campaign.

But like the others at the gathering, Carrillo said he thought the tone of the campaign--particularly the TV ads--was “harder and nastier” than necessary. In addition, Carrillo described CBS correspondent Dan Rather’s confrontational encounter with Bush early on as a low point in the media’s coverage of the campaign. And he criticized media broadcasts of rumors about Dukakis’ medical past.