WASHINGTON -- In a major disappointment for the newspaper industry, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday declined to review a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowing the news media to be sued for reporting one politician's libelous comments about another.

Without comment, the justices refused to hear the claim of the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., that the First Amendment insulated it against a defamation suit by two politicians who already have been awarded damages against a colleague who had suggested that they were "queers and child molesters."

The newspaper printed that charge in 1995 along with a response from one of the targets calling the accusation "bizarre" and expressing hope that the man who made it "can get the help he needs."

A jury ordered Parkesburg Councilman William Glenn Sr. to pay $17,500 each in damages to council President James Norton III and Mayor Alan Wolfe for defamation.

But a judge dismissed a suit against the newspaper on the grounds that it was covered by a "neutral reportage privilege" under which "the subjective awareness of the publisher of the truth or falsity of the statement is irrelevant."

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Ralph Cappy, reversed that holding. Cappy said the U.S. Supreme Court had not embraced the neutral reportage privilege, nor was it likely to do so.