New Yorkers Lash Kennedy, Defend Murdoch at Hearing

NEW YORK-Newspaper union leaders and Mayor Edward I. Koch pilloried Sen. Edward M. Kennedy during a hearing yesterday at which they said the New York Post could fold if publisher Rupert Murdoch were forced to give it up.

Koch said Kennedy had launched "a noxious assault on the First Amendment" aimed specifically at Murdoch when the Massachusetts Democrat got an amendment added, virtually unnoticed, to a spending bill last month.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) at Kennedy's request, prevents the Federal Communications Commission from granting Murdoch any relief or review of the rule barring common ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city.

Murdoch, under a June 30 deadline for resolving a dual ownership in Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts, has declared he will keep the Boston Herald and sell WXFT television. In New York, Murdoch has until March 6 to rid himself either of the Post or WYNW television.