FCC Panel Rejects Walker Complaint : * Broadcasting: Channel 2 anchorwoman accused radio station KFI-AM of personal attacks during talk-show discussions of her pregnancy.

The Federal Communications Commission’s mass media bureau has formally rejected KCBS-TV Channel 2 anchorwoman Bree Walker’s complaint that radio station KFI-AM (640) attacked her during two talk shows last summer.

Paul Steven Miller, who filed Walker’s complaint last fall in an effort to have KFI’s license revoked and its management punished, said Wednesday that Walker is still “weighing her options” and may appeal the decision to the regulatory agency’s five commissioners. Miller is litigation director for the Los Angeles-based Western Law Center for the Handicapped.

Tari Susan Hartman, a spokeswoman for Walker and her husband, KCBS reporter Jim Lampley, said Wednesday: “The Lampleys felt it important to speak out because they felt personally attacked by the broadcasts. They are satisfied because the process itself created an open forum for discussion, raised awareness regarding reproductive rights of people with disabilities in the media and the general public, and unified the disability community.”

In her Oct. 17 complaint, Walker maintained that KFI violated the FCC’s Personal Attack Rule by airing factual inaccuracies and slighting her character in two broadcasts during which talk-show hosts Jane Norris and Tom Leykis discussed Walker’s pregnancy.

Walker has a genetic condition known as ectrodactylism, which fuses the bones of the hands and feet together. When it became public knowledge that she and Lampley had conceived a child, Norris opened KFI phone lines last July 22 to discuss whether the couple was being irresponsible in conceiving a child who had a 50-50 chance of inheriting the genetic disorder.

In a broadcast on Aug. 28, Leykis and Norris further discussed the “morality” of Walker’s pregnancy.

A five-page decision handed down on Monday by Milton O. Gross, chief of the fairness/political programming branch of the enforcement division of the FCC’s mass media bureau, rejected the complaint.

“At most, the comments of Norris and Leykis, and those of some of the call-in listeners, appear to express a disagreement with or disapproval of (Walker’s) (or more generally, a disabled person’s) decision to bear a child,” the decision said. “The program’s alleged ‘bias’ with respect to one viewpoint does not elevate the discussion to the level of a personal attack.”

KFI General Manager Howard Neal hailed the decision and said that neither Leykis nor Norris has ever been disciplined for the Walker broadcasts.

“My reaction to this is the same as it was when it happened: We may have done something incorrectly in terms of formatting and response, but under the guidelines and directives of the FCC, I feel comfortable,” said Neal. “Essentially, the FCC saw it as we did. There was no personal attack. She (Walker) had raised the question many times herself and talked about it.”

Neal said that he thought the Lampleys would have mixed feelings about the ruling because it upholds the same First Amendment rights that both journalists rely upon to do their nightly newscasts.

However, Chip Mellor, president and general counsel of the Washington-based Institute for Justice, said that the ruling didn’t go as far in that direction as Neal believes. His organization might appeal the decision even if Walker doesn’t, he said, because the commission staff ruled strictly on procedural issues and did not address the constitutional right of KFI to broadcast what it wished, free of FCC restrictions, such as the Personal Attack Rule.