Lessons learned:
1. You must not ever tell the truth about social problems in America, least you be accused of promoting “stereotypes”.
2. Nothing good comes from posting your thoughts and opinions on social media. You will eventually post something that will provoke the SJW “thought police” and it will cost you your job and subject you to all sorts of social opprobrium from the “right-thinking” people.
The irony is that media figures like Ms. Bell are encouraged by management to post their thoughts and opinions on social media such as Facebook and Twitter in the belief that it will increase ratings for their station. Nevertheless they will get no support whatsoever from the management if they should ever say the “wrong thing”.
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Wendy Bell, an award-winning journalist with WTAE-TV for 18 years, was fired Wednesday for comments she made on her Facebook page.
A statement from Hearst Television, the station’s parent company, said, “WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell. Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”
WTAE-TV president and general manager Charles Wolfertz III confirmed the news and declined to comment. A spokesman for Hearst Television also declined to comment further. News of her firing drew hundreds of online posts within the first half-hour, with some people saying they would be switching to another station.
Ms. Bell did not return phone calls for comment from the Post-Gazette, but she told the Associated Press that 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 when reached at her home on Wednesday. “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.”
Ms. Bell joined WTAE in 1998 and has won 21 regional Emmy Awards.Ms. Bell had been off the air since Mr. Wolfertz aired a public apology from the station last week, citing Ms. Bell’s “egregious lack of judgment” in posting racial stereotypes on her official Facebook page.
After a mass shooting March 9 in Wilkinsburg in which police still have made no arrests, Ms. Bell wrote, in part, “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.
“They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs.”
She then wrote about a young African-American man, this one a worker she saw in a SouthSide Works restaurant. She said she called over the manager and praised the man, adding, “I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special.”
Since originally posting on Facebook, Ms. Bell edited the statement and eventually removed it. It created an online stir, with parodies on sites such as verysmartbrothas.com and thousands of comments for and against the longtime newswoman on sites such as reddit.
Many of the readers posting comments on a Post-Gazette.com story about the firing Wednesday said they would be switching stations to express their outrage over WTAE’s actions.
Ms. Bell later apologized for her Facebook post. In part, the apology read, “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.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, that Facebook page had been taken down. Her profile on the WTAE-TV website also had been removed.
Asked to weigh in on the firing, a journalism ethics expert said freedom of speech is a tricky thing when practiced by those who must adhere to the facts.
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