AMERICA’S CUP ’92 : All Aboard to Report on Boat Races : Media: Interest has fallen short of projections, but the America’s Cup has attracted a cross-section of people to cover the event.

David Dutton quit his job as a full-time copy editor in Montreal to come here and free-lance as the only Canadian to write daily about the America’s Cup.

He rented an apartment in Ocean Beach, bought a bicycle and now makes the 16-mile round-trip trek to the Media Center in the One America Plaza building downtown to dutifully report on the yachts.

His $153 official AT&T; America’s Cup telephone bill verifies his attention to detail.

His former employer, The Gazette, agreed to accept his stories via computer and use them for free in exchange for transmitting them to 20 of Canada’s largest newspapers.

“That’s what I’ve written so far,” said Dutton, producing a folder several inches thick. “For each story used in one of the 20 papers in Canada, I get a $40 check.”

And how many checks has Dutton received for his work on the America’s Cup in the past three months?

“None,” he said.

Hard to believe. And you thought you were the only one on your block who didn’t care about the America’s Cup.

“One should never underestimate the apathy of Canadian readers, or Canadian editors,” Dutton said. “This sounds really awful, but I was sort of hoping there might be an earthquake I could follow. Those things always make good copy: Canadian survives earthquake.”

Michael Koslowski, meanwhile, has covered every race, met every deadline, and by all accounts did a fine job for the New Zealand Press Assn. However, when Italy defeated New Zealand’s entry in the Louis Vuitton Cup last week, the New Zealand Press Assn. informed a contracted Koslowski that payment for accommodations and salary had been stopped.

“They informed me,” he said, “that I was no longer employed.”

Guy Gurney presumably has had more success. According to the nameplate in his work area he is filing stories on behalf of a dozen publications, ranging from Newsweek to Screw magazine.

Welcome to the America’s Cup Media Center, grab a table, pull up a chair, stake a claim to a telephone. Hey, somebody should use them.

Way back when all this started there was happy talk that there were going to be more reporters here than fish in the sea. “You’ll need 200 seats in the media area,” they told Dennis Morgigno, ACOC Media Center manager.

“We have 215,” he said. “Next time we’ll get a 100.”

The America’s Cup Organizing Committee said more than 1,200 media members have been accredited for this event. However, that total includes broadcasters, technicians, photographers, scribes, wives, sponsor representatives, souvenir seekers and two birds who have been trapped in the Media Center for the past couple of weeks.

I know how they feel .

“If this were football, the Super Bowl or whatever, 75% of the people that have been credentialed here wouldn’t qualify,” said Bill Center, sportswriter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. “That’s being conservative. The ACOC promised that there were all these thousands of media coming in, and to get to that level to show the Port District or the Yacht Club how much media were here, they are credentialing everybody.

“You can probably count on two hands the people that are in here working on a regular basis. I’m surprised homeless people haven’t come up and been credentialed.”

Take another look around the room.

“There are several people that I’ve met here who managed to secure (media) accreditation who are doing very little with yachting,” Dutton said. “They are using the services of the telephone and desks, and basically this is an office for them. They watch the races on TV, go to Club Italia and partake in the free lunches that are served on racing days.”

Hal Rosenberg, general manager for KFSD, a classical music radio station that also provides sailing reports, will not do any of his station’s sailing reports, but both he and his wife have been accredited as working media.

“I qualify,” he said.

Who doesn’t qualify? To identify the hard-core journalists, one must wait until party time. They are usually the ones who have been left behind in the Media Center to write their stories.

“There are some media who we consider tourists,” said Jane Eagleson, ACOC’s media relations director. “There were some court proceedings a few weeks ago on one of our financial situations. Some of these people were calling up asking what time is it going to start? And where will it be? It was like, gee, you guys always know how to find out where the parties are. Why don’t you use the same tactics to get your news story?”

There are so many people who don’t belong in the Media Center, but so many empty desks.

“It’s a free office up here, isn’t it?” said Bob Fisher, who doubles as sailing writer for the Manchester Guardian and editor of The Auld Mug Weekly. “Hell, look at all that spare space. You could have been running your office here for the last four months and nobody would have known the difference. Wouldn’t cost you a thing.”

Charles Doherty has been camped in the Media Center since Jan. 15, and no one has seen him write a word.

“First he was accredited under ‘The Investment Reporter,’ and now he’s credentialed under a Brazilian publication,” said Eagleson. “Someone was trying to tell me that he’s really the CIA.”

Doherty said that he’s aware that the CIA has been accused in the past of posing as magazine reporters in foreign countries to gain access. In hindsight, he never did say if the CIA was or was not paying his way.

“I’m in the merchant banking business, investment banking,” he said. “I’m writing a story about the financing of the America’s Cup as it relates to public corporations and private corporations. . . . I’m making contacts and meeting people in countries that I wanted to check on investment possibilities.

“I may write about three stories while I’m here and earn less than $1,000. I’ll spend probably $8,000. Let me tell you, the dollars I make from writing don’t justify the cost of me being down here.”

Does the CIA care? While waiting to make contact with officials from the top racing syndicates, Doherty said he uses the Media Center to keep in contact with his investment banking clients. “I answer calls, make some calls and may look at five or six investments a day,” he said.

Lauren Dagge, who had a credential dangling from her neck identifying her as the, “Independent News,” resides a few feet away from the investment banker’s make-shift office.

“I’m dictating some things back to Dublin, but I’m really here working on a press conference for the Whitbread Round-the-World Race,” she said. “. . . You don’t want to talk to me because I really don’t belong here.”

Join the club. Make yourself at home. Coffee is $1. A 1989-1992 International Yacht Racing Rules book, which was originally $10, is now $5. Any media member wanting to purchase a $175 ticket to the America’s Cup Ball must curry favor first from the Media Center staff. The Motion Sickness Press Information Kit, however, is free.

A ride in the media boat is $75. Take along the wife, and she’s considered your guest and you will pay $300 for her company. Forget it, most everyone is staying in and watching it on TV. “They’re the media cheapies,” said a young man by the sign-up desk for the boats.

Enter the media contest and guess the winner and time of the day’s races and walk off with a pair of Swiss Army sunglasses or a Louis Vuitton duffel bag.

“I went out and priced the duffel bag and they sell retail for $825,” said one local media winner. “I’m trying to sell it now for $600.”

Many of the free-lance writers believe the media contests have been fixed to award the favored scribes.

“There is an ‘A’ list and a ‘B’ list of media members,” Dutton explained.

The (estimated) $325 official America’s Cup Citizen watches were a gift to selected media representatives--the ‘A’ list--although one prominent journalist insists he returned his to avoid any conflict of interest. Most everyone, however, received the bottle of vodka inside the Stolichnaya bag at the party for the Society of International Nautical Journalists.

“I had to steal mine,” said John Willkie, president and general manager of Bay 63, a community television station that has yet to go on the air. “I didn’t get one when I came in and someone else had three. I told him, ‘Isn’t that my bag?’ Well, it was late in the party and he was very drunk and I got my bag.”

Observers noted that Willkie also left with one of the Stolichnaya jackets that were given to invited guests.

“He hadn’t been invited, although he called with his RSVP,” Eagleson said. “I think he was tapped on the shoulder later and advised it wasn’t a good idea to wear the jacket around here.”

Willkie has been here for the past few months working as a stringer for the Washington Times, while also videotaping many of the press conferences and events for his new TV station.

“I’ve gotten one story in the paper so far, so in terms of the amount of money, I’m getting about 10 cents an hour,” he said. “But to me it’s almost been a lark. I don’t drink, but a lot of people say they are here only because of the alcohol.

“I’m going to use the videotape for some sort of post-mortem and it could be an investigative type on the ACOC’s mismanagement. The people involved in this organization have got paid too much money for the little amount of work they do.

“For a while I was keeping people’s time cards. I would come in at 7 in the morning and I would know who arrived two minutes early and who was an hour late. The man who runs this room, Dennis Morgigno, is paid a lot of money and he was putting in a good 28-30 hours a week and I was putting in about 60 monitoring him.”

Morgigno offers no apologies. While flabbergasted that someone would track his working time, he said he has been here on the day before Christmas, the day after, and almost every day since. He has been here when everyone else has left for the night, and has arrived before their return. He has responded to the media’s demands, although a limited ACOC budget has not allowed him to be as accommodating as the flashy Louis Vuitton public relations team.

And he has also provided Willkie with a $5,000 lap-top computer.

“We’ve had our problems, but then we’ve reacted and corrected them,” said Morgigno, a former reporter for Channel 39. “I agree, there are too many tourists in here. We’ve yanked a couple. We’ve tried to monitor the credentialing process, but it’s hard to say who is legit and who is not.

“Take the Vineyard Gazette; is he a yachting journalist on the par with Angus Phillips (Washington Post) and Rich Roberts (Los Angeles Times)? No. Is he writing an article? Probably. Does he deserve to be here? Probably.”

The first person the media meet when they apply for credentials to cover the America’s Cup is Debbie Reynolds. No, not the unsinkable one, but rather the unflappable Reynolds, who religiously verifies that media are who they say they are.

“I had one guy who tried to finagle a photo credential,” Reynolds said. “The photo boats get closer to the races, they are smaller and it costs $75, while the spectators will pay $500. We stopped him, but he tried to get on the boat anyway.”

By any chance did this guy have chapped lips, a big gut, a Diet Pepsi in his hand and look as if he had just lost his last race?

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” said Lenny Ignelzi, photographer for the Associated Press. “Watching this is like watching porno films. Only the participants are having any fun. Everyone else is bored.”

Figure it out: New Zealand wins, and then loses a protest, and then the race is annulled. The bowsprit? Ask your local bartender.

“In America most people would rather watch a replay of the college basketball final,” Koslowski said, “than two blokes plodding around on the water and then have the results reversed in the protest room later. It’s the same old America’s Cup bull. It’s not sports, it’s politics.”

Those in the know, however, enjoy every bloody moment of the America’s Cup. Some have written enough words to fill a Russian novel, and while it may make as much sense, they attack their daily task with passion.

“There are only so many of us here and I feel a tremendous responsibility to the people back home,” said Laura LaPosta, a reporter for Il Mattino in Naples, Italy. “The press in Italy is a little bit different than anywhere else. The press in Italy will write that our teams, they are geniuses when they win, and when they lose, we write that they should leave. Go away.”

Ciao, Dennis .

David Dutton continues to pedal his bicycle to work. He writes and writes and waits and waits for someone in Canada to notice his work.

“I have a really good sense of accomplishment every day,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned I’m succeeding because I’m producing. I know this stuff is good.

“The price of my stories is going to rise sharply in the finals--from $40 to $60. If I get 20 papers using it that should be $1,200 a day. But then, I’m not holding my breath.”