By Sheryl Estrada
Wendy Bell. Photo from Twitter.
Wendy Bell, an anchorwoman at the Pittsburgh TV station WTAE, was fired Wednesday for violating journalistic standards due to Facebook comments regarding young, Black men and a mass shooting. Bellis now added to a growing list of professionals around the country, including law enforcement and school officials, fired for racial comments on social media.
FiveBlack people, one woman was eight months pregnant, were fatally shot in Wilkinsburg, Pa., on March 9 at a barbecue. No arrests have been made yet in connection to the case, nor have the police offered descriptions of the gunmen.
In a March 21 Facebook post, Bell, who is white, speculated about the race, and lives, of the two perpetrators.
“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday … they are young Black men, likely in their teens or early 20s,” she wrote on her WTAE Facebook page. “They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs.”
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Bell edited the statement and eventually removed it.
“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell,” according toastatementfrom 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.”
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Bell has received backlash on Twitter:
When you get caught saying racist things, that’s not ‘misspeaking’, that’s just your racism coming to the fore. #WendyBell
Ziggy Daddy (@Ziggy_Daddy) March 30, 2016
Bye #WendyBell! Unacceptable and definitely not professional. The fact that racists support her comments is SICK! https://t.co/MqjRdF2XY8
Tia A. Ewing (@TIA_EWING) March 30, 2016
Meanwhile, Bell supporters have created a GoFundMe page, which states, “We are Making Pittsburgh Great Again.” The phrase is almost identical to the campaign slogan of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Bell, who worked at WTAE for 18 years, apologized, saying in part, “I now understand that some of the words I chose were insensitive and could be viewed as racist. I regret offending anyone. I’m truly sorry.”
But, she also told the Associated Press she didn’t get a “fair shake.” Bell said the real story is the toll violence is taking within Black communities.
Local Television Market Universe Estimates, generated by Nielsen (No. 42 on Fair360, formerly DiversityInc’s 2015 Top 50 Companies for Diversity), foundPittsburgh’s local broadcasts reach 1,154,550 homes, ranking No. 23 out of 200 markets across the country.
The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation (PBMF) and representatives of WTAE-TV met Wednesday to discuss how to improve news coverage of communities of color.
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PBMF said in a press release the organization “did not call for Bell’s employment with WTAE to end” and that the station had terminated Bell prior to the meeting, which was scheduled last week.
WTAE has agreed to partner with PBMF on several diversity-related initiatives, such as working to recruit talented journalists of color for its newsroom.
