Campaign Travel Made a Relic by Technology : Media: Feinstein, Wilson woo voters mostly through commercials, telephone and fax. Few reporters follow the candidates to each and every stop.

Two weeks before California was to elect a new governor, the top story on Channel 9’s nightly news in Los Angeles was about Humphrey the wayward whale. Next came stories about a megamouth shark in Orange County and a deformed dolphin floundering in the surf off Malibu.

And why not? Pete Wilson and Dianne Feinstein did not campaign in public that day. If they had, few of the state’s political reporters--for TV or newspapers--would have been there anyway.

The days are over when would-be governors Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown rode small planes and cramped sedans around the state to kiss babies and give stump speeches, trailed by packs of reporters who noted the reaction of local folks.

Wilson and Feinstein are campaigning for the country’s biggest non-federal political job mostly by telephone, fax and television commercials. When the candidates do venture out to see actual voters, they often stay in the Los Angeles area and are accompanied by just a handful of reporters.

The shift of campaign geography to Los Angeles makes sense for the candidates, who want to stay near the state’s biggest mass of voters. It also plays to the desire of editors and TV news producers, who have less money for travel this year.

For Wilson and Feinstein, the equation is simple: The easiest way to reach California’s 13.1 million voters is by television, and more voters live within sight of Los Angeles’ TV signals than anywhere else.

Rather than traveling around, the candidates find their time is better spent making phone calls to potential donors of the money needed for TV commercials. When the candidates desire to make news with a remark or speech, it is more productive to do it here in the state’s largest TV market than in Redding or Chico.

“Chico is a beautiful place, but it is one-half of 1% of the electorate. You do an event in Los Angeles and you cover 41% of the electorate,” said Dee Dee Meyers, spokeswoman for Feinstein’s campaign.

As the Nov. 6 election closes in, Feinstein and Wilson will make final trips up the state. In fact, Feinstein was in Chico on Friday after all. But, said Otto Bos, campaign director for Wilson, “both candidates are going to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles.”

Whether on the road or in Los Angeles, the flock of journalists following Wilson and Feinstein has dwindled to a covey. Reporters are staying in the office more and writing their stories based on telephone reporting.

In 1986, when she was helping Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley campaign for governor, Meyers said there were “half-dozen reporters with us everywhere we went.” But now editors and reporters are being more selective to save money, she said.

Many newspapers and television stations have reduced their travel budgets and other expenses as part of an industry-wide financial retrenchment.

Faced with the need to save money and keep an eye on the candidates in Los Angeles, the Sacramento Bee this year rented an apartment in the Wilshire district for its reporters covering the race, said William Endicott, capital bureau chief of the Sacramento Bee.

The apartment saves on hotel bills, and the reporters stay over a Saturday night to qualify for discount airline tickets or fly home via Oakland because there are more special fares to the Bay Area, Endicott said.

Linda Douglas, the political editor of KNBC, Channel 4 in Los Angeles, used to be one of the few TV correspondents to travel with candidates, but she says the station’s cutback in traveling has not detracted from her coverage.

“Once in a while you miss something in the Central Valley,” Douglas said. “But I have not been agitating to travel. I think we are very well covered.”

The main reason, she said, is a satellite that allows network stations such as KNBC to swap news footage with their affiliated stations in San Francisco, Feinstein’s home base, or San Diego, Wilson’s hometown.

Both Douglas and Rollin Post, political reporter for KRON-TV in San Francisco, said their TV stations are airing as much campaign news as they feel is necessary. “I get on as much as I have to, or want to or need to,” Post said.

But air time and newspaper space for election coverage has been tighter this year, in part because of the financial pinch--which has reduced the number of pages newspapers publish--and in part because of other major news stories.

The Persian Gulf situation and the budget stalemate in Washington have commanded much of the media’s attention. The appetite for news of the governor’s race has also been diluted by the lengthy ballot of initiatives and other races.

“Obviously we’re competing with some other things out there,” said Bos. “We are often not the lead on the evening newscast.”

Also, neither Wilson nor Feinstein is seen as having the charisma of Reagan or Brown, and public interest in the race seems lower than in past years. Just 68% of the eligible adults have registered to vote, the secretary of state said--the lowest share ever in a governor’s race. Registration, which used to climb for gubernatorial elections, is down about 835,000 voters since the 1988 presidential election.