The year started well for the CEO of Entercom, David Field. He was named “Radio Executive of the Year” by Radio Ink and chosen as one of the best CEOs by Institutional Investor.

But, last week, a government agency sued Entercom for engaging in payola – failing to disclose payments made in return for the broadcast of specific programming. Payola is usually a violation of federal law. No matter. The government agency suing Entercom was not a federal agency, but the office of the New York State attorney general, Eliot Spitzer.

If the allegations are true, Entercom should be punished. But the way Mr. Spitzer presented his complaint does not inspire confidence. Businesses, and even other government agencies, should be concerned.

In a sloppy complaint, Mr. Spitzer begins: “The broadcast media are, in the words of the United States Supreme Court, ‘a valuable and limited public resource.'” The quote is inaccurate. The Supreme Court statement in Columbia Broadcasting v. Democratic Comm. (1973) reads: “Because the broadcast media utilize a valuable and limited public resource, there is also present an unusual order of First Amendment values.”

Even if he had accurately quoted Columbia Broadcasting, the case is irrelevant to – in fact almost at odds with – Mr. Spitzer’s complaint. In Columbia Broadcasting, the Supreme Court held that neither communications law nor the First Amendment could compel an unwilling broadcaster to sell advertising. Mr. Spitzer’s complaint is quite different, based on a long-recognized legal theory that broadcasters must name sources of payments for programming, not at issue in Columbia Broadcasting.

Mr. Spitzer charges that Entercom, the owner of 11 stations in Buffalo and Rochester, engaged in deceptive business practices and fraudulent acts violating broad New York general business law. Unlike federal communications law, New York law is not specific to radio payola. Had Mr. Spitzer found evidence of payola, he might have alerted federal prosecutors or the Federal Communications Commission to bring a case under the federal law that was specifically designed for payola.

Rather than work with federal officials to enforce federal law, Mr. Spitzer lashed out at them in a statement to the press: “Almost a year after payola was exposed in significant detail, the FCC has yet to respond in any meaningful way. The agency’s inaction is especially disappointing given the pervasive nature of this problem and its corrosive impact on the entertainment industry.”

But is the allegation of slackness at the FCC accurate? Just last August, the chairman of the FCC, Kevin Martin, announced new investigations of payola. Perhaps Mr. Spitzer has the privilege of knowing more about what the FCC is doing than the agency lets on to the public.

Deliberations on enforcement actions by government agencies against private parties are necessarily confidential. We may never know whether the FCC is reviewing allegations of payola at Entercom and other companies, whether the FCC has decided to bring charges against Entercom, or whether the FCC has reviewed the matter and decided not to bring charges. We do know that Mr. Spitzer found it appropriate to publicly chastise the FCC.

There is a simple message to businesses around the country: Mr. Spitzer is watching you. If a business is breaking a law and other government agencies are turning a blind eye, Mr. Spitzer may take the wrongdoer to court, issue press releases, and criticize other government agencies for failing to act.

Mr. Spitzer’s bravado may be inappropriate. If a business does not actually break the law, if other government agencies have the business under investigation, or if another agency is working with the business to correct mistakes, Mr. Spitzer’s publicity campaigns may do more harm than good. When challenged by a government agency, many businesses seek to settle rather than defend themselves even against the most unfounded charges. The necessary burden of care for the government is extraordinarily high when prosecuting private parties.

Law enforcement, central to the smooth functioning of any economy, is at its best when it is predictable, dispassionate, carefully constructed, and taken by the government agency with jurisdiction over the broken law. Entercom may well be guilty as charged, but Mr. Spitzer’s complaint lacks many of the best characteristics of law enforcement.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.