COURT ASKED TO BLOCK FCC DECISION

WASHINGTON — A New York group is asking a federal appeals court to block a Federal Communications Commission decision abolishing the fairness doctrine, the law firm representing the group said Monday.

Media Access Project, a Washington law firm representing the Syracuse Peace Council, filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York late Friday.

The petition contends the fairness doctrine, which requires broadcasters to cover contrasting views of controversial issues, is compulsory and that the FCC lacked the authority to scrap it, said Andrew J. Schwartzman, executive director of the 14-year-old public interest law firm.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a decision written by Judge Robert H. Bork in September, 1986, ruled the fairness doctrine was not a law and the FCC could abolish it without action by Congress. Bork has since been nominated to the Supreme Court.

The FCC last Tuesday voted 4-0 to do away with the doctrine on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and unnecessary and hinders broadcast coverage of controversial issues.

The action stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Meredith Corp., a Des Moines, Iowa, broadcast concern, that challenged the FCC’s determination that its Syracuse, N.Y., television station had violated the fairness doctrine with a series of advertisements promoting construction of a nuclear power plant. The Syracuse Peace Council had filed the complaint against the station.

Media Access Project is taking its case to the New York appeals court in hopes it will issue a ruling conflicting with the Bork decision and block the FCC’s enforcement of its decision, Schwartzman said.

However, Schwartzman added that despite the firm’s filing, “I’m confidently predicting it (petition for review) is never going to be decided because Congress will in all likelihood make the fairness doctrine a law.”

Supporters of the doctrine in Congress have said that when they return from their summer recess in September they will attach an amendment making the doctrine law to a bill President Reagan will not want to veto. Earlier this year, Reagan vetoed a fairness doctrine bill and neither the House nor the Senate has mustered the votes to override the veto.