‘Diary’ Opens a New, Lurid Chapter : Media: In trying to control coverage and access to a new book, Judge Ito is finding that the process is out of control.

There was only one copy left of Faye Resnick’s disgusting new Nicole Brown Simpson book when I arrived at the neighborhood Crown Books early Tuesday evening.

Resnick is a cocaine addict who wrote a book about Simpson, who she claims was her dear friend. A cocaine addict recalling memories of a woman who can’t answer from the grave. Why should anything in it be believed?

Yet her book was selling like mad. “I could kick myself,” the bookstore manager said. “I only ordered 20.” Three had been purchased by CBS. Counting mine, it adds up to four bought by the news media. That means the rest, 80%, had been snatched up on the first day of sale by the public, no doubt including many of the self-righteous who berate the press for covering the O.J. Simpson story, then read everything written about it.

These consumers, and the entrepreneurs who supply them, have turned the Simpson story into big business, with ratings at stake as well as the sales of magazines and newspapers. And in the rush for bucks, forget good taste--as you can see by the O.J. Simpson and Nicole Simpson costumes on sale for Halloween.

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The saga of Resnick’s book began quietly enough in the Criminal Courts Building on Tuesday. A summary had been published in most New York papers that morning, and accounts of it had been on television the night before. But in the mass of garbage that has been published about this case, Resnick’s book looked to be just one more bag of trash.

In midmorning, however, Ito announced that “something has been brought to my attention of significant import to the case.” It was the Resnick book.

The judge sent the jury out of the courtroom, and talked briefly with a few reporters. He asked them to be restrained in covering the book story. One of the reporters said the book was already out and excerpts had been published and broadcast. “It’s out already?” he said. “Boy, they don’t waste any time.”

On Wednesday, Ito wrote to CBS’ Connie Chung of “Eye to Eye”; CNN’s “Larry King Live” and syndicated talk show host Maury Povich, asking them to withhold the broadcast of interviews they had with Resnick. “I hope you will find it in your conscience, corporate and otherwise, to cooperate with this request . . . until after the jury in this case has been selected and sequestered,” the judge wrote.

CBS and Povich said they would go ahead, but CNN agreed to the delay.

The judge was trying to control the case, to prevent it from being thrown out on an appeal based on defense charges that publicity has denied Simpson a fair trial. But as it has turned out, Ito is fighting something bigger than him, bigger than any court--a runaway media, fueled by undisciplined competition and a hunger for bucks. This has always been the case with television, radio and the various forms of print. But today, USC journalism professor Ed Guthman told me, “the means for exploiting it are much, much greater.”

Resnick’s book is an example of how the process works.

In an earlier day, if I had obtained a copy of the book and tried to convince one of my editors at The Times to run a story on it, I would have been laughed out of the newsroom. I bet a reporter would have had the same reaction at NBC Nightly News or the KCBS-TV newsroom.

But sometime around when Gary Hart appeared to have violated the biblical injunction against adultery, private lives became public news, and barriers of good taste began to disappear. This coincided with the growth of television tabloid news shows, which competed against one another for sensations.

So after sequestering herself with co-author Mike Walker in the romantic White Mountains of Vermont to write her book, Resnick embarked on a selling campaign that was more important to her literary success than the words of her book. This included the television interviews and leaks of the material to the New York tabloids.

Even with all this, the Resnick book might have disappeared into the sewers of Beverly Hills, where it had been published by Dove Books of North Canon Drive. But Judge Ito, in trying to control the impact of the book, gave it a tremendous boost.

When Ito took judicial notice of the Resnick memoirs, making it part of the court record, papers such as The Times had to move in. We’re covering the trial and Ito made it an important part of the proceedings. Boosted to Page 1, the Resnick book was on its way. I’m sure the manager of my neighborhood Crown Books, and his counterparts elsewhere, were on the phone first thing Wednesday ordering more copies.

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On Tuesday night, I read Esquire magazine’s current cover story. It painted Simpson as a killer so powerful that the author, in her dreams, was tempted to follow him to her death.

Newsweek was just as bad a few weeks ago, with a story on the two sides of Simpson, one outwardly good, the other darkly evil. It was full of racism, mocking Simpson for taking elocution lessons before going to work on television and for associating with white people. Before that, stories in the New Yorker and Newsweek smeared Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman.

The drive to compete, to boost ratings and sales through the marketing of the sensational murder trial obviously threatens the rights of the defendant. That’s what worries Judge Ito. But as he found out when he tried to control the runaway process, it’s beyond him, beyond anyone.