Wendy Bell, Award-Winning News Anchor, Fired For 'Racist' Facebook Post

A Pittsburgh TV station is under heavy fire from its viewers after firing a popular news anchor for a Facebook post that has been called controversial and racist.

Wendy Bell, who had been with WTAE-TV since 1998 and won 21 Emmy Awards, was fired Wednesday after the station felt huge backlash for the Facebook post about a mass shooting in Wilkinsburg earlier this month that left five people dead and three wounded and for which no one has been arrested.

Bell said the shooters were likely young, black men who grew up in broken homes and then detailed a visit to a local restaurant where she said a young, black worker was "going to make it."

The city's black media federation said Bell was "careless," and a popular blog post from a local black culture magazine ripped Bell for her white privilege and ignorance. Many of the TV station's viewers were shocked at her firing, and Bell herself, a household name in Pittsburgh TV news, said the station went too far.

"WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell," the TV station said in an emailed statement to Patch through its parent company, Hearst Television. "Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards."

Hearst Television declined further comment.

Bell's WTAE Facebook page has been deleted, but her post lives on through screenshots and news reports.

Last Monday, Bell took to Facebook to voice her thoughts on the shootings and their possible perpetrators. According to TribLive, which reprinted the entire post, it read 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. 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.

She went on to describe an encounter she had at a restaurant with a young, black bus boy who she saw working hard.

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.

Bell eventually edited her post to apologize for offending anyone and admitted that her post was “insensitive and could be viewed as racist," according to TribLive.

But the damage had already been done.

The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation called her post "careless, presumptive and ignorant."

"The irresponsible statements demonstrate a persistent problem with how African-Americans are negatively stereotyped by too many journalists and news organizations," the statement said.

A scathing, widely shared blog post by Very Smart Brothas, a Pittsburgh-based black culture magazine, called the post 'racist' and Bell "a White privilege lasagna caught in the throat of a White privilege turducken."

"Seriously, read this scribbled-on-some-toilet-paper-at-a-Hallmark-factory-bathroom bullsh** again," Damon Young writes in the post. "And think about the state of mind that allows someone to juxtapose that awful tragedy with a night at the Cheesecake Factory. As if there’s any connection between the two besides the race of the server and the race of the victims."

Bell was officially fired Wednesday, after she returned from vacation, TribLive reported.

Bell herself has only talked with the Associated Press since her firing, saying that she didn't get a "fair shake."

"What matters is what's going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country," she told the AP. "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."

She certainly has her fair share of supporters, as a quick glance at WTAE's Facebook page shows. Nearly every story the TV station posts is met with pro-Bell comments.

"Instead of supporting your reporter and letting the controversy die down, you have fed it by firing her and have caused the so called 'racist' situation to become a black/white frenzy," Karen Dunn wrote on the page Thursday morning. "Have you read all the controversy? Do you care that you supported the racism caused mostly by people ready to call anything racism? We will not watch your station any more."

Most of the posts from viewers say they won't be tuning in any more.

"NO MORE WTAE FOR MY FAMILY!" Sheryl Fleming Brown wrote.‎ "What if Wendy Bell would have said, white people might be responible for the Wilkensburg tragedy, I gurantee she would still have a job."

Image via Wendy Bell, Twitter