EARTHQUAKE: DISASTER BEFORE DAWN : NEWS ANALYSIS : Radio Was the Lifeline, But TV Provided Pathos

Just months after the trauma of devastating fires, Southern Californians endured a new round of frightening TV reports Monday.

The Northridge quake followed recent edgy TV reports about a succession of smaller temblors.

For many residents, however, the terror of the moment became even more uncertain when they could not see the effects of the killer quake because power outages blacked out TV in some areas. For those people, radio coverage became the main conduit of information.

Again, though, the burden of responsible, non-inflammatory coverage fell heavily on Los Angeles television stations, which all stuck with the biggest L.A. area quake in 23 years for hours on end, handling themselves respectably, for the most part.

Despite the daily crime-story obsession of stations such as KNBC Channel 4, the local channels--particularly since the verdicts in the Rodney G. King civil rights case and Reginald O. Denny beating trial, and last fall’s fires--seem to have responded to angry criticism from the public and have mostly toned down their sensationalism on major breaking events that have racked the Southland.

Monday’s quake also got lengthy, enormous play across the nation, from ABC’s “Good Morning America” to “CBS This Morning” to CNN, with extended reports using coverage from Los Angeles stations and involving such anchors as Jane Pauley, Connie Chung and Ted Koppel. NBC’s Tom Brokaw and ABC’s Peter Jennings flew to Los Angeles to anchor their nightly newscasts from the site of the story.

President Clinton took to national television twice by early afternoon to commiserate with Southern Californians and promise aid. In the morning, he said, “There’s been a severe disruption of life there.” In the afternoon, he added that “the people of Southern California have been through a lot lately,” from the fires to the economy to the quake.

Although no single local reporter dominated coverage of Monday’s big shake the way David Horowitz captured the audience during the 1971 Sylmar quake, poignant vignettes followed one after another in the latest scare.

But a disturbing failure was the relatively scant attention paid to reaction to the quake in such minority areas as South-Central and East Los Angeles. At one point, in typically absurd fashion, KCBS Channel 2 went to the inevitable shots of rich areas populated by celebrities.

Although radio may have been more effective than TV in informing residents about the damage, audio reports could not come close to the eerie image of KABC Channel 7’s Marc Brown walking alone along the broken and empty Santa Monica Freeway. “The freeway seems to have dropped about 15 feet,” he said, pointing at a spot where two cars had hit an abruptly raised portion of the freeway and crashed out of control.

Viewers saw mobile homes go up in flames in Sylmar. “We had maybe 15 minutes to get out of here with our lives,” a resident told KCBS Channel 2. The shots of damage at a Northridge shopping center were unsettling. Mayor Richard Riordan, wearing a Lakers sweat shirt, told viewers in a brief message: “Let’s all stay cool.”

Even with the recent catastrophes that have hit Los Angeles, several reporters seemed taken back by the enormity of the damage. At one point, reporter Frank Buckley of KCAL Channel 9 showed a heavily damaged house on a San Fernando Valley hillside. “What you’re looking at is a house that is gone . . . just gone,” he said, almost in disbelief.

KABC reporter Bob Banfield was shocked when several customers standing outside a supermarket in Chatsworth suddenly converged on a tall cart loaded down with meat. “I’m not even sure people are paying for this,” said Banfield in an incredulous tone, adding that the manager of the store may not have used the best technique for distributing the food.

KTLA’s Stan Chambers was outstanding with his lengthy, detailed coverage of firefighters’ hours-long rescue of a man trapped in a collapsed parking structure.

But mostly, TV viewers watched yet another Los Angeles nightmare on a very bad day.

Times staff writer Jane Hall contributed to this story.