ASHINGTON - A month before Election Day, a federal appeals court threw out longstanding rules that require broadcasters to give candidates a chance to respond to personal attacks and political endorsements.
The immediate effect of the repeal of the rules - which already had been suspended through the remainder of the 2000 campaign season - is unclear. But broadcasters, who had long argued that the regulations have a chilling effect on free speech, celebrated the court's decision.
''This decision represents a historic victory in the 20-year fight to grant broadcasters the same free-speech rights as print journalists,'' said Edward O. Fritts, president of the National Association of Broadcasters.
The Radio-Television News Directors Association, which also mounted a challenge to the rules, said broadcast journalists could look forward to enhanced First Amendment rights.
''This fight has not been easy,'' said RTNDA president Barbara Cochran. ''But it was the right thing to do.''
One regulation requires TV and radio stations that endorse a political candidate to notify and give free rebuttal time to the candidate's opponent. The other rule requires that broadcasters provide politicians or other private citizens with free air time to respond when they have been attacked during a program.
Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the commission has failed to respond to opponents by justifying the existence of its rules.
The rules have ''continued to exist in a vacuum, unsupported by reasoning that would demonstrate to the court that they are in the public interest notwithstanding some interference with and some burdens on speech,'' the court said.
The court had asked the Federal Communications Commission a year ago to offer better support for the decades-old rules. In response, the commission finally said last week it would suspend the rules for two months to study the effect and the validity of the claims of broadcasters.
The court rejected the commission's plans.
''It is folly to suppose that the 60-day suspension and call to update the record cures anything,'' the court said. The FCC's ''response consists of an order that further postpones a final decision without any assurance of a final decision.''
The commission is weighing writing new rules, a process that takes months of soliciting public and industry comments.
''We will use this opportunity ... to determine how best to ensure that the public receives balanced coverage of controversial issues,'' said FCC Chairman William Kennard.
Public interest groups that support the rules asserted that the court's opinion was a reflection on the agency's failure to respond, not on the regulations themselves.
''They have said nothing new about the merits of these rules,'' said Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Media Access Project.
