THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Back-Seat Treatment Rankles Many Journalists : Coverage: Tempers flare as Judge Ito gives choicest spots to authors Dominick Dunne and Joe McGinniss, relegating some news writers to shared spaces in the back of the room.

As opening arguments began in the courtroom, arguments of another kind were taking place outside--among journalists who couldn’t get in Tuesday to see the opening statements in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

News reporters were steamed over the front-row seats that Judge Lance A. Ito personally gave to book authors Dominick Dunne and Joe McGinniss.

Dunne’s gossipy, celebrity-sprinkled writing style and McGinniss’ use of invented dialogue is making the seating arrangement all the harder to swallow for journalists--especially since most reporters are sharing spots with rivals, and in one case 18 are swapping turns for a single back-of-the-courtroom seat.

Los Angeles-area newspaper reporters have individual seats. But they are positioned several rows behind Dunne and McGinniss, rankling some.

“Here you have Southern California’s three leading newspaper companies relegated to the cheap seats while the front row is reserved for Judith Krantz in pants and Ted Kennedy’s unauthorized mind-reader,” complained Paul Pringle, bureau chief of the Copley News Service, which is reporting on the trial for the San Diego Union-Tribune and papers in Santa Monica, Torrance and San Pedro.

“Dunne’s a professional gossip. And it seems like McGinniss ought to be able to read O.J.’s mind from anywhere in the courtroom,” Pringle said.

A familiar face on the Hollywood party scene since coming to town 18 months ago and holing up in the tony Chateau Marmont to write articles and launch a fictional novel about the Menendez brothers murder case, Dunne has proclaimed this one an even greater spectacle.

“The Simpson case,” Dunne wrote in the latest edition of Vanity Fair, “is like a great trash novel come to life, a mammoth fireworks display of interracial marriage, love, lust, lies, hate, fame, wealth, beauty, obsession, spousal abuse, stalking, brokenhearted children, the bloodiest of bloody knife-slashing homicides, and all the justice money can buy.”

McGinniss became acquainted with controversy when convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald sued him and received a $325,000 settlement in 1988 after claiming McGinniss betrayed him by becoming his friend and then writing “Fatal Vision,” which portrayed MacDonald as a coldblooded killer.

His 1993 Kennedy book, “The Last Brother,” was roundly thumped for putting both “thoughts in the senator’s head and words in his mouth,” as one critic put it.

Both McGinniss and Dunne bypassed normal Superior Court procedures for applying for the 27 news media courtroom seats, writing personal letters to Ito asking to be let in. Neither is apologetic about it.

“If they have a gripe, take it up with the judge. This is how I make my living,” Dunne said of reporters Tuesday as he stepped out of the courtroom for the lunch break.

Said McGinniss: “They can do the same. The New York Times, L.A. Times and Washington Post are in it for profit, too.”

The more than 100 news organizations applying for admission were picked by Ito and court officials on the basis of their circulation, audience, location and commitment to covering pretrial proceedings, according to court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett.

“Two authors wrote the judge. He told me they’d written and asked for seats and said, ‘I want to honor their request,’ ” Hayslett said.

Once it was decided which news organizations would get permanent courtroom seats and which ones would share space, “all of the names were put on sheets of paper and put in a box and one of the law clerks pulled them out” to decide who sat where, Hayslett explained. “It was a lottery.”

A farce is more like it, according to critics of the seat assignments. They complain that McGinniss--who says he plans to write his book from a juror’s perspective--didn’t even show up until last week.

“It’s an outrage,” sniffed an East Coast reporter who asked not to be named. Grumbled a West Coast journalist: “When it comes to sorting out who’s a serious journalist and who isn’t, the court seems to be intoxicated by the perfumed pages of celebrity magazines.”

The Los Angeles Daily Journal, which last fall drew criticism from Ito for printing what he considered an unfair and unflattering profile of a colleague on the bench, was ordered to share a back seat with the Washington Post, the Sacramento Bee and the UPI wire service.

“We were surprised” by the seating allocation, said Janet Shprinz, editor of the legal-oriented Daily Journal. “We don’t think it reflects the role we play in the Los Angeles legal community.”

The seat-sharing assignment with Newsweek and Time for Michael Tharp of U.S. News & World Report and Shelley Smith of Sports Illustrated was also surprising to those writers. That’s because Tharp is Smith’s ex-husband.

“Oh well, we share custody of our 8-year-old daughter, Dylann, too,” Tharp said.

If seating is tight this time, things could be worse if there is a Simpson retrial, suggested Hans Laetz, assignment manager of KTLA-TV. He was in the courthouse Tuesday to work out a mix-up with the station’s seatmate, KCAL-TV.

“Next time they’ll have to figure out where the CD-ROM guys are gonna sit,” Laetz said. “The big question will be, ‘Where’s the Internet correspondent’s place?’ ”