FCC rules give pause to advocacy.

WHY ENDORSE CANDIDATES? Why, indeed, when some say it is practically un-American to do so.

At Cablevision, we don't endorse candidates though frequently we take positions on ballot issues in Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York City, and soon, in Westchester. We cablecast editorials twice weekly in these communities. We also address issues, as they surface during political campaigns.

The decision against endorsing candidates predates my joining Cablevision four years ago. But given the regulatory complexities of endorsing or opposing candidates in radio and television, I am inclined to agree that the decision not to endorse candidates makes sense. I can attest to the logistic nightmare from my experience of writing and delivering editorial endorsements of candidates at WCBS-TV in New York City, where I served as editorial director during the 1970s.

In spite of 20 years of court battles over their constitutionality, FCC rules still require stations that endorse candidates to offer reply time to spokespeople for all opposing candidates. In New York, where there may be a half-dozen minor party candidates in any given election, the FCC rules could result in a week or more of air time being devoted to reply. To prepare, you'd have to endorse candidates weeks or months before an election and then forgo editorials on any other subjects during the election period.

The National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio Television News Directors Association have been arguing persuasively in federal court to abolish these FCC rules. Ironically, though, the lawsuit has been going on for so long that many of the television stations that originally claimed to be chilled by the rules have gone through ownership changes and are no longer presenting editorials. My old station, WCBSTV, is one of them.

Still, the same sort of thinking that has led to government-content regulation in terms of television editorials should cause editorial writers in print to question some of their own practices about editorial endorsements.

I think many editorial writers who are calling for campaign finance reform that curbs political advertising haven't really examined the question of whether editorial endorsements constitute another form of "unfair" speech. If you buy the argument that advocacy advertising has to be regulated by government, then why shouldn't editorial endorsements in print be treated the same way?

After all, if a newspaper endorses candidates, and mostly candidates from one political party, how does that endorsement differ from the issue advocacy ads that many reformers, including proponents on many editorial pages, want government to curb or control? If it is right for government to control spending on issue advocacy ads, which are currently unregulated, how can it not attempt to curb or regulate spending by newspapers on behalf of candidates through editorial endorsements, spending that is totally unregulated?

Unlike broadcasters and cable, newspapers are not required to provide free space for responses from opponents of those they endorse. (Senator Mitch McConnell, an opponent of campaign reform, complains that it would cost $33,000 just to buy an eighth of a page in The New York Times to contend with a Times editorial in comparable space.)

Nor does the government determine whether the newspaper editorial should be classified as campaign spending on behalf of the candidate, when it comes to regulating campaign financing. Why should newspapers freely and explicitly endorse candidates, a practice that many editorial writers would find offensive if used by interest groups to support or oppose candidates in issue ads, even when issue ads stop short of explicitly endorsing candidates?

What newspaper editorial page has ever complained about the government restrictions placed upon editorial endorsements presented by broadcasters and cablecasters? I never heard of one. How can newspapers insist that their unrestricted political endorsements are good things, while endorsing or condoning government rules that restrict the political expression of others? Editorial pages that are proposing restrictions on the political speech of others in the name of campaign reform ought to examine their own political endorsement policies. Yes, you say, but what about freedom of the press?

Wasn't it A. J. Leibling who said freedom of the press belongs to those who own it?

NCEW member Peter Kohier is vice president, editorial services for Cablevision Systems Corp. in Bet hpage, New York