WTAE fires anchor Wendy Bell over controversial Facebook remarks

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WTAE fires anchor Wendy Bell over controversial Facebook remarks

Jason Cato | Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:15 p.m.

Mike Mancini

Wendy Bell, former WTAE news anchor

WTAE-TV fired longtime news anchor Wendy Bell on Wednesday, more than a week after she posted a controversial message on Facebook.

Bell returned to work at Channel 4 after a Florida vacation but never returned to the air. Station officials fired her in a meeting and then informed the rest of the news staff.

“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell,” read a statement from Hearst Television, the station's parent company. “Wendy's recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company's ethics and journalistic standards.”

A Hearst Television spokesman declined to comment further.

Bell said Wednesday she didn't get a “fair shake” from the station and that the story was not about her, but about “African-Americans being killed by other African-Americans.”

“It makes me sick,” she told The Associated Press. “What matters is what's going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country. ... I live next to three war-torn communities in the city of Pittsburgh that I love dearly.

“My stories, they struck a nerve. They touched people, but it's not enough. More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed.”

Charles Wolfertz, president and general manager of WTAE, did not return calls for comment.

On March 21, Bell posted to her work Facebook page thoughts concerning still at-large shooters who killed five adults and an unborn baby at a Wilkinsburg cookout this month as well as her observations of a restaurant worker in the South Side.

Many viewed her post as racist, and she received criticism and support online.

Bell, who is white, later edited her post and apologized, saying she regretted “offending anyone” and that her post had been “insensitive and could be viewed as racist.”

The entire post has been removed from Facebook.

WTAE issued an official apology last Wednesday after Bell was last seen on air. The apology, in part, stated: “Her post offended us. … Wendy is sorry for the words she chose, and so are we. It was an egregious lack of judgment.”

Bell joined WTAE in 1998. The native of Calabasas, Calif., lives in Point Breeze with her husband and five sons. Over her career, she won 21 Emmys, two Edward R. Murrow awards and a National Headliner Award.

Within hours of her firing, Bell's WTAE Facebook page was gone and she no longer appeared on WTAE's web page staff listing.

Her controversial Facebook post opined that the shooters of the March 9 slaying in Wilkinsburg are black men in their teens or 20s who have prior arrests and who “have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs.”

No arrests have been made.

Bell's post also praised a black teen she saw working diligently in a SouthSide Works restaurant.

“He's going to Make It,” she wrote.

Damon Young last week publicly criticized Bell's post on VerySmartBrothas.com, a site he founded in 2008.

At first, Young said he wasn't calling for Bell to lose her job. But he said he also isn't sorry that she did.

“This isn't something to be happy about,” said Young, 37, of the North Side. “I'd be happy if she didn't possess the thoughts that led to her getting herself fired. That would make me happy.

“But I do believe she should be fired because she is a journalist. I think journalists have a certain responsibility for objectivity.”

Al Tompkins worked in broadcast news for nearly 25 years and is a senior faculty member at The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit media training center in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“I hate it when an anchor loses a job in a humiliating way,” Tompkins wrote in an email. “Sadly this case is a reminder of a few things: Everything that a public person, including an anchor, says online and on social media is public.”

News directors and editors often encourage journalists to use social media to share opinions and glimpses into their private lives — with little editorial oversight. Tompkins said.

“That may not be the best idea,” he said. “Generally my feeling is if you wouldn't say something on the air don't say it online.”

Tompkins admitted he knows nothing of Bell's situation other than reports of her Facebook post. “I cannot explain why political candidates these days can say outrageous things and gain support while in this case a single social media post resulted in such a blowup,” he said. “But the public is on edge.”

Racist is a loaded word, said Tim Stevens, CEO of the advocacy group Black Political Empowerment Project. He said he doesn't often use it — even in this case.

“That was a super insensitive thing to write,” Stevens said of Bell's post before noting that he chooses his words carefully when making public comments. “Someone like Wendy should know that — to her bones.”

Stevens said he was conflicted over whether Bell should have been fired. Still, he plans to use the incident as an opportunity to discuss race in the news. He said he plans to contact WTAE and other local news outlets about holding a public discussion on the issue.

The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation said its leaders and WTAE-TV agreed to collaborate on “improving news coverage of communities of color.” Federation board members met Wednesday with WTAE management, after the station released its statement on Bell, the organization said, adding it didn't call for Bell's employment to end.

Tompkins said people can learn from Bell's post and firing.

“We all benefit from using this incident to heighten our sensitivity to how others might read what we write,” he said.

Jason Cato is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7936 or jcato@tribweb.com. The Associated Press contributed.

Details

Controversial post

The text of Wendy Bell's original Facebook post, which has since been deleted.

"Next to ‘If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times,' I remember my mom most often saying to my sister and me when we were young and constantly fighting, ‘If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.' I've really had nothing nice to say these past 11 days and so this page has been quiet. There's no nice words to write when a coward holding an AK-47 hoses down a family and their friends sharing laughs and a mild evening on a back porch in Wilkinsburg. There's no kind words when 6 people are murdered. When their children have to hide for cover and then emerge from the frightened shadows to find their mother's face blown off or their father's twisted body leaking blood into the dirt from all the bullet holes. There's just been nothing nice to say. And I've been dragging around this feeling like a cold I can't shake that rattles in my chest each time I breathe and makes my temples throb. I don't want to hurt anymore. I'm tired of hurting.

You needn't be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday. I will tell you they live within 5 miles of Franklin Avenue and Ardmore Boulevard and have been hiding out since in a home likely much closer to that backyard patio than anyone thinks. They are young black men, likely teens or in their early 20s. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They've grown up there. They know the police. They've been arrested. They've made the circuit and nothing has scared them enough. Now they are lost. Once you kill a neighbor's three children, two nieces and her unborn grandson, there's no coming back. There's nothing nice to say about that.

But there is HOPE. And Joe and I caught a glimpse of it Saturday night. A young, African American teen hustling like nobody's business at a restaurant we took the boys to over at the Southside Works. This child stacked heavy glass glasses 10 high and carried three teetering towers of them in one hand with plates piled high in the other. He wiped off the tables. Tended to the chairs. Got down on his hands and knees to pick up the scraps that had fallen to the floor. And he did all this with a rhythm and a step that gushed positivity. He moved like a dancer with a satisfied smile on his face. And I couldn't take my eyes off him. He's going to Make It.

When Joe paid the bill, I asked to see the manager. He came over to our table apprehensively and I told him that that young man was the best thing his restaurant had going. The manager beamed and agreed that his young employee was special. As the boys and we put on our coats and started walking out -- I saw the manager put his arm around that child's shoulder and pat him on the back in congratulation. It will be some time before I forget the smile that beamed across that young worker's face -- or the look in his eyes as we caught each other's gaze. I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special.

There's someone in your life today -- a stranger you're going to come across -- who could really use that. A hand up. A warm word. Encouragement. Direction. Kindness. A Chance. We can't change what's already happened, but we can be a part of what's on the way. Speak up. Reach out. Dare to Care. Give part of You to someone else. That, my friends, can change someone's course. And then -- just maybe THEN -- I'll start feeling again like there's something nice to say."