America’s Cup Bows to Censorship, and Newspaper Reporters Take Flak

The written word.

* America’s Touchiest City?

The America’s Cup Organizing Committee is blotting a line from 30,000 copies of its official Directory and Visitors Guide.

The line says of Mission Bay Park: “Not a good beach for swimming, due to frequent closures relating to water quality.”

There are 40 other upbeat references to Mission Bay throughout the 154-page guide.

Not good enough for the Mission Bay Lessees Assn., which raised hell about the one offending reference. America’s Cup volunteers are busily at work with marking pens.

* War on the media.

After Times reporter Gil Reza did a story about harassment of Iraqi cabbies, he got an anonymous call about “you and your raghead friends.”

After Times reporter Nora Zamichow did a story about gay sailors, she got an unsigned letter smeared with excrement.

* Believe it or not.

“Real Ghosts,” a CBS special set for March or April, will include a segment on the mysterious death in 1892 of a young woman in Room 3312 at the Hotel del Coronado.

The television account is taken from “The Legend of Kate Morgan” by San Francisco attorney Alan May. He claims to have seen an apparition of Morgan in 1989.

* Richard Repasky, former Secret Service agent living in La Costa, has written a comic screenplay about two klutzy federal agents assigned to guard an equally wacky presidential candidate.

Among other things: the candidate is harassed by bikers and the White Aryan Nation.

Repasky, now a Department of Labor investigator in San Diego, helped protect Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. His bumblers, though, are U.S. Customs inspectors, not Secret Service:

“I couldn’t write anything bad about the Secret Service.”

Ambushed by Enterprising Reporter

Flowers, facts and friendly fire.

The public affairs office at the Navy Hospital in Balboa Park is furious at the way a San Diego Union reporter got an exclusive interview with a wounded Marine.

Reporter Ron Powell gained entry to the room of Lance Cpl. Ronald Tull by carrying a large bunch of flowers with a yellow ribbon and telling guards and nurses that he was a visitor.

Powell did identify himself as a reporter to Tull, who then told of being hit by “friendly fire” during the battle for Khafji, Saudi Arabia.

Navy rules call for reporters to send all interview requests to the hospital’s public affairs office.

A patient and his doctor must give written permission for an interview. A public affairs officer sits in on all interviews.

“I’ve never in 10 years seen anything like this,” fumed Pat Kelly, the hospital’s public affairs officer.

She said the incident will make military personnel even more reluctant to grant interviews because it reinforces the media’s “slimeball” image. She complained to Powell’s editor.

A protest from Adm. Robert Halder is also planned. Don’t look for it to have much impact.

Alfred JaCoby, assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, said he sees nothing wrong with Powell’s methods, given the fact that he identified himself to Tull.

“Good reporters go directly to the source of the information,” JaCoby said. “They don’t deal with public affairs officers. . . . We are not inclined to punish reporters for doing their job.”

Hot Target, Hotter Race

Seen and heard.

* Spotted outside the federal grand jury room in San Diego: A bull’s-eye target, with Saddam’s face.

* The hottest San Diego City Council race may be District 4: The Rev. George Stevens has signed up for a rematch with Wes Pratt.

In 1987, the fiery Stevens topped Pratt in the district primary but lost in the citywide runoff. This time, it’s strictly a district matter.

* Banner at UC San Diego: “Who needs dissent when we have shopping malls?”