Quote: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.”

(03-31-2016, 08:31 PM)6andcounting Wrote: She's been with the station 18 years. She's been been a favorite it Pittsburgh; numerous awards for journalism excellence. No history of having to apologize or being punished.  Great with the community, charities, blah, blah, blah.

On the station's side, she made the post from her work profile which shows "Wendy Bell WTAE" as her name. They have every right to decide to fire her and there's nothing meaningful she could do in terms of legally getting her job back.


Here's her original comment:

“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.”



First paragraph, nothing but remorse for the victims. Straight forward.

2nd paragraph, she gives a general profile she believe will pretty much identify the suspects. There wasn't (and still hasn't) been any official suspects identified by police, so none of what she said was official police word, just a relatively obvious assumption. Wilkinsburg is a mostly black, high crime neighborhood with a long history of problems. All of the victims were black and part of the same family; the police said from the start the victims (or at least one of them) was a specific target for the attackers.

3rd and 4th paragraphs are about the waiter. Now the Waterfront, where this restaurant was, is an old steel mill that has be a community revitalization project. There's a Target, Dave & Busters and other places that are larger for all economic classes. However, their are some expense restaurants, specialty stores and very expensive apartments (many Steelers live here as it's a mile from the practice field). It could definitely be described as an upper class area, but it's surrounded by some of the worst (crime, poverty) neighborhood in the city. Most of the workers at the businesses at the Waterfront live in the lower class surrounding neighborhoods. That much is just a fact.

Now for Bell's comments, she's justing pointing out the obvious about the waiter, whether it's his great service or he's a young man from a poverty empowering himself. Funny thing is, she's basically saying he doesn't have white privilege - which is the exact thing the left would say about a young black man. When she said that he hasn't been told he's "special' in a while, I thought she was speaking told his reaction when his manager gave him a pat on the back.

I saw this comment when she first posted it. It did strike me as a bit riskee for a local news anchor, but thought it was a great comment in terms of sympathy for the victims and encouraging self-empowerment and encouraging others to just show appreciation toward others- like she did with the waiter. I don't think her word choice was poor at all. I think she tackled something from a controversial angle that some people, including her employer, didn't like.

WTEA's Facebook page has lost about 12,000 followers (down to 238k) in about 24 hours. I didn't know she was suspended for the past few weeks, I just heard about it last night and than remembered her comment from a few weeks ago.

(03-31-2016, 09:10 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: As usual, it sounds much better in context.
I was too lazy to look at the whole thing.
Thanks 6 !

(03-31-2016, 09:25 PM)6andcounting Wrote: If someone has to pull two sentences from 5 long paragraphs and place them next to each other to make you seem racist, you probably aren't. Plus, she was speaking to a Pittsburgh audience that would know the people working at the restaurant are largely from the surrounding poor neighborhoods, and not an assumption she made because he was black.

I don't disagree with her comments and don't think they are actually racist, but I still don't know how I feel about the firing. On one hand she's a news anchor, meaning that should largely stay away from the political, cultural and controversy side of reporting the news. On the other hand, WTEA gave her this Facebook account so she can speak personally on the news, and not just read the facts off a teleprompter like during the actual newscast. She obviously had some leeway to commentate and inject feelings and opinions, but that's always going to be a fine line.

(04-01-2016, 12:10 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not sure I understand what she is trying to say.  How does she know that the black bus boy has mulyiple siblings from multiple fathers and a mother who works multiple jobs?

Stereotypes are often rooted in fact.  Stereotypes are only a problem when people apply a stereotype to every individual from a group.  That is the mistake this lady made.  The busboy may have came from a stable home and would have been highly offended that this woman judged him as an individual based on a racial stereotype.

(04-01-2016, 12:10 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not sure I understand what she is trying to say.  How does she know that the black bus boy has mulyiple siblings from multiple fathers and a mother who works multiple jobs?

Stereotypes are often rooted in fact.  Stereotypes are only a problem when people apply a stereotype to every individual from a group.  That is the mistake this lady made.  The busboy may have came from a stable home and would have been highly offended that this woman judged him as an individual based on a racial stereotype.

(04-01-2016, 01:28 AM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: Is that what was posted?
Are you sure?

(03-31-2016, 11:03 PM)GMDino Wrote: The bigger problem I have is all the people around here (Pittsburgh area) who don't understand what "free speech" means.  And that includes way too many of my friends.

(04-01-2016, 12:49 AM)Vlad Wrote:

(04-01-2016, 12:10 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not sure I understand what she is trying to say. How does she know that the black bus boy has mulyiple siblings from multiple fathers and a mother who works multiple jobs?

Stereotypes are often rooted in fact. Stereotypes are only a problem when people apply a stereotype to every individual from a group. That is the mistake this lady made. The busboy may have came from a stable home and would have been highly offended that this woman judged him as an individual based on a racial stereotype.

(04-01-2016, 07:57 AM)6andcounting Wrote: It was the attackers who she said came from broken homes, not the busboy. And it's not necessarily a stereotype of his race. The workers to these restaurants are from the poor neighborhoods that surround the some strip of revitalization.

Quote:PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh television station WTAE said it has ended its relationship with anchorwoman Wendy Bell over racial comments she posted on Facebook about an ambush shooting at a cookout that left five people and an unborn baby dead.


In a statement Wednesday, parent company Hearst Television said Bell's comments were "inconsistent with the company's ethics and journalistic standards."

Bell, who is white, speculated about the identities of the two men who fatally shot five black people in the poor Pittsburgh suburb of Willkinsburg on March 9.

In her March 21 post on her anchor Facebook page, she said 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 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."

In the same post, she also praised a black restaurant worker in a way some readers felt was condescending.


After a social media backlash, Bell apologized, saying her words "were insensitive and could be viewed as racist." The station also apologized, saying Bell's remarks showed "an egregious lack of judgment."

Authorities have not made any arrests in the killings or provided a description of the possible suspects. Siblings Jerry Michael Shelton, 35, Brittany Powell, 27, and Chanetta Powell, 25, along with two cousins, Tina Shelton, 37, and Shada Mahone, 26, were killed in the ambush shooting, police said. Chanetta Powell was nearly eight months pregnant.

On Wednesday, Bell defended herself, saying 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."

Bell joined WTAE in 1998 and has won 21 Emmy Awards.

Her post drew mixed reactions from viewers. Some saw her comments as offensive and called for her firing, while others said the comments were not racist and applauded her honesty. Facebook pages in support and opposition of Bell were created in the wake of the incident.

(04-01-2016, 07:57 AM)6andcounting Wrote: It was the attackers who she said came from broken homes, not the busboy. And it's not necessarily a stereotype of his race. The workers to these restaurants are from the poor neighborhoods that surround the some strip of revitalization. Now, she didn't make that clear either way, but in part could have been because the Pittsburghers she was talking to would have understood the poverty and youth unemploy that area is known for.

While I agree with her overall message, this part you were referring to probably takes away from that point because it is somewhat open to interpretation. I'm not trying to defend her or her words as much as I'm trying to give my perspective which has a less cynical take on her intent. I still can't say WTEA was flat out wrong for what they did, but I don't think she is racist.