EARTHQUAKE / THE LONG ROAD BACK : Area Newspapers Improvising to to Reach Readers : Media: Power outages and damaged buildings lead to makeshift arrangements. Loss of phone service affects advertising revenues.

Rocked along with the region that depends on them for information, Los Angeles-area newspapers made sometimes herculean efforts this week to reach their readers.

And although media outlets lost revenue when the temblors cut off their phone lines and temporarily shut down advertising offices, none expects much long-term financial harm from the damage.

Hardest hit was the Daily News, headquartered in Woodland Hills. Spokeswoman Lynne T. Jewell said operations were basically back to normal Thursday, but the paper’s news and advertising staffs were forced earlier in the week to set up a succession of temporary offices at other newspapers around Los Angeles.

Tumbling ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures and file cabinets--as well as a prolonged power outage at the newspaper’s Valencia printing plant--shunted some workers into a trailer next to the main office. Newsroom and advertising employees moved back into the building Thursday, Jewell said.

“I guess when you first looked at it, it was in pretty bad shape,” Jewell said. But a structural inspection found that “it just wasn’t that bad.”

On Monday night, the Tuesday edition of the Daily News was printed at the Daily Breeze plant in Torrance. On Tuesday night, the newspaper printed at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in West Covina.

Initially, the paper--published by Tower Media Inc., a company owned by sports and media tycoon Jack Kent Cooke--was given temporary newsroom space at the Outlook in Santa Monica. For two days, editorial and advertising personnel were given desks and phones at the Pasadena Star-News.

In Wednesday’s edition, editor Bob Burdick described the difficulties of getting the paper out, saying he wept when Tuesday’s edition arrived at his Glendale home.

“I don’t know whether it was in relief, or in sorrow for those who suffered in the earthquake, or simply exhaustion,” he wrote.

North of the epicenter, officials of the Signal in Santa Clarita said the paper lost “many thousands of dollars” in advertising because of power outages.

“It has been a very traumatic time for us here, but we’ve come through,” General Manager William Fleet said Thursday. Though the paper’s plant was relatively unharmed, he said, damage to computers and other equipment forced it to print Monday night at the Antelope Valley Press in Palmdale.

Spokeswoman Laura Morgan said the only structural damage at Los Angeles Times facilities may be at the offices and printing plant in Chatsworth. “But there’s no safety hazard there,” Morgan said. Workers began returning to the buildings on Tuesday.

While power and phones were out in the Times’ Downtown offices until early afternoon Monday, editorial staffers communicated by two-way radio part of the day. Helicopters were used to ferry editorial materials to The Times’ Orange County facilities, where the computers never shut down, and to the Los Angeles headquarters.

The Times printed an extra 100,000 copies of Tuesday’s editions, which included a special section of emergency information. Free copies were available at Red Cross centers.

La Opinion--a Spanish-language newspaper owned in part by Times Mirror, publisher of The Times--offered free copies containing emergency information at Red Cross and Salvation Army centers. The paper’s truck drivers distributed papers in parks where quake victims--many of them Spanish-speaking--have been camping out.

“Our interest was to get information to the people who needed it, so that our community was taken care of,” said Editor Monica Lozano, whose family’s company publishes the paper.

Other newspapers had to make special efforts to reach their readers in hard-hit parts of the San Fernando Valley.

The Korea Times, a six-day-a-week Korean-language newspaper with 60,000 subscribers, set up an emergency relief center at a branch office in Van Nuys. Beginning Tuesday morning, the newspaper, headquartered in Koreatown, offered residents free drinking water, food and copies of the newspaper, which contained emergency information.

Winston Diau, editor of the Chinese Daily News in Monterey Park, said a leaking roof water tank damaged classified advertising offices and a stock room.

Most advertisers in the newspaper--which publishes 100,000 copies daily--are in Orange County, which was largely unharmed in the quake.

But in the San Fernando Valley, which has a growing Chinese-speaking population, many groceries and bookstores that normally sell the paper were closed. On Wednesday, the paper sent a special circulation team into the area to find new outlets in convenience stores and ethnic-oriented shops.

“We’ve been trying to convince these stores to put our newspapers in there for the convenience of the Chinese reader,” Diau said.

At the black-oriented Los Angeles Sentinel, based in the Crenshaw district, Publisher Kenneth R. Thomas said the newspaper had been “very fortunate.”

But Monday’s power outages shut the weekly’s advertising offices on what normally is their busiest day. Though the newspaper made its Tuesday deadline, classified advertising was especially hurt.

“That caused us a lot of grief,” Thomas said, estimating the losses at $5,000 to $10,000.

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Contributing to the Times earthquake coverage were staff writers Leslie Berger, Edward J. Boyer, Bettina Boxall, Miguel Bustillo, Sara Catania, Carol Chastang, Mathis Chazanov, Susan Christian, Marla Cone, Rich Connell, Aaron Curtiss, Tina Daunt, John Dart, Pancho Doll, Ken Ellingwood, Faye Fiore, Michele Fuetsch, Ralph Frammolino, Jerry Gillam, Abigail Goldman, Larry Gordon, Gary Gorman, Carla Hall, Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Nieson Himmel, Shawn Hubler, John Hurst, Chip Johnson, John Johnson, Ted Johnson, J. Michael Kennedy, Greg Krikorian, Chau Lam, Don Lee, Peggy Lee, Myron Levin, Robert Lopez, Eric Malnic, Hugo Martin, Jean Merl, Josh Meyer, Jeff Meyers, Alan C. Miller, Joanna M. Miller, John L. Mitchell, Dan Morain, Julio Moran, Sonia Nazario, Jim Newton, Psyche Pasqual, Tony Perry, Bob Pool, Jeff Prugh, Jeffrey L. Rabin, Cecilia Rasmussen, Mack Reed, Carla Rivera, Shari Roan, Deborah Schoch, Elizabeth Shogren, Douglas P. Shuit, Stephanie Simon, Claire Spiegel, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Julie Tamaki, Tracy Thomas, Cynthia L. Viers, Amy Wallace, Henry Weinstein, David Wharton, Jodi Wilgoren, Timothy Williams, Teresa Ann Willis, Tracy Wilson, Richard Winton and Nona Yates. Also contributing were special correspondents Douglas Alger, Ed Bond, David E. Brady, Rebecca Bryant, Susan Byrnes, Maia Davis, Brenda Day, Marina Dundjerski, Samantha Dunn, Julie Fields, Ann Griffith, Shelby Grad, Kay Hwangbo, Jeff Kramer, Tommy Li, Adrian Maher, James Maiella, Patrick McCartney, Sharon Moeser, Geoffrey Mohan, Matthew Mosk, Kurt Pitzer, Jeff Schnaufer, Terry Spencer, Stephanie Stassel and Richard Stayton.