Flag Ban Mutiny at News 12?

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NewsMax.com

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 4:03 p.m. EDT

Staffers at New York's Cablevision News 12 may be on the verge of staging a mutiny over news director Pat Dolan's edict banning personal on-air displays of the American flag.

"He's on the verge of deciding to do it anyway, he's on the verge of taking a stand," said WABC Radio's Sean Hannity Thursday, after talking to one News 12 staffer who is now pondering defying Dolan's anti-flag rule.

The News 12 employee told Hannity that he did not want to be identified, but was well aware of the consequences of such dramatic on-air action.

"Like a lot of us in the news business, you take a stand, you know the risks involved," Hannity said. "And the risk in this particular case would involve firing."

"It's not just me," the staffer told Hannity, before asking him to relay this message to his WABC Radio audience:

"Please tell your audience we don't agree with this. Ninety-nine percent of the employees are not only angry about it, they're quite upset about it. They feel the conflict that they want to support their country, they want to support their nation. Tell your audience that many of us disagree [with Dolan]."

"There is the possibility that there's going to be a rebellion," said the radio talker, who described his News 12 source as someone with a young family and a mortgage who could pay a heavy price by defying station management.

Wednesday night, News 12 ran an hourly message from news director Dolan, where he apologized for the controversy and denied he'd issued any stationwide flag ban.

But he pointedly did not rescind the decision to prohibit on-air reporters from displaying the flag in the form of ribbons, lapel pins or other patriotic paraphernalia.

"The flag is also a powerful symbol that must be used wisely," Dolan warned viewers. "That's why, in my opinion, we need to be careful in using it when we're in public reporting the news. ... We don't want anyone to get the false impression that our patriotic emotions cloud our reporting of the truth."

Read more about News 12's flag censorship: New York's Cablevision Bans American Flag

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