Editorial: Firing Wendy Bell overlooks larger issue

WTAE anchorperson Wendy Bell’s problematic Facebook post last month warranted some kind of action, but her termination from the Hearst-owned media outlet won’t solve anything.

On March 21, Bell posted her unsupported assumptions about the Wilkinsburg shooting on March 18, that resulted in the deaths of five adults and an unborn baby. Her post was riddled with racial profiling — stating the shooters are probably “young black men” with “multiple siblings from multiple fathers.”

WTAE responded with an apology — Charles W. Wolfertz III, WTAE’s president and general manager, said the station is committed to “making sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” and he fired Bell March 23. The station also agreed to partner with the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation to review WTAE’s coverage of African-American communities and other diversity-related issues in meetings twice a year.

The same day Bell was fired, she apologized on Facebook and said her words “could be viewed as racist” and she regrets offending anyone.

But saying her language “could be viewed” and she “regrets offending” shows she has learned nothing from the situation. This is unsurprising, as WTAE passed on a valuable teaching opportunity for both Bell and all of Pittsburgh.

Cutting ties with Bell rather than using the incident to publicly address systemic racism doesn’t do much more than make Bell a problematic martyr for those who call efforts toward inclusivity to be malformations of “PC culture.” It also puts the blame on Bell rather than the larger systems at play here that led her to believe her comments were OK.

Over the weekend, Bell made a new Facebook page, where she plans to do “some really fun stuff,” according to an introductory post. The page, which now has more than 48,000 likes, has become a place where people can show their support for Bell.

But Bell’s job loss shouldn’t be taking center stage. It’s not her struggle that fueled this ordeal — it began with her off-the-cuff comments about a horrific tragedy. Instead of transforming Bell’s inappropriate comments into a lesson on internalized racism, Bell’s firing has become the story, and her “struggle” has become the tragedy.

But racism was never a Wendy Bell-specific issue.

Rather than fire her, WTAE could have had Bell explore and report on what she has personally learned about white privilege in Pittsburgh through interviews with community members and race scholars. Investigating what led Bell to make these assumptions, why she felt it was her place to speak on the issue and why so many hold opinions similar to hers would be a more effective approach for WTAE than washing its hands clean of Bell.

This wasn’t Bell’s first disrespectful remark. According to the New York Times, in May 2010, she made a racially charged comment about sunscreen in reference to a black co-anchor’s skin color. The response was similar — an offended audience, and a prompt apology to end the discussion.

But she didn’t learn then, and, without regimented teaching about race issues, she probably won’t learn now — especially not with a 50,000-person strong fan base telling her she didn’t deserve to be fired. Pushing Wendy Bell off the screen won’t spotlight an issue that Pittsburgh needs to recognize, but instead push our city’s race issue further into the shadows.

In her original post about the Wilkinsburg shooting, she describes an encounter she had with a 23-year-old black employee of the restaurant who was clearing tables when she went out to dinner. She commends him for being hard working — and is especially impressed because he’s black and working, which she alludes to as practically being antithetical. For those reasons, even her compliment is offensive and patronizing — and overall, racist.

Brandon Walker, the man who had been bussing tables and carrying glasses at the restaurant Bell was visiting, responded appreciatively of Bell’s comments and said he “went home and put up a post and said how great it felt to be noticed on Facebook,” according to his interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on April 2.

But despite Walker’s appreciative words, Bell took it upon herself to act as an examiner and critiqued him as if it was her role or place to do so, a trend that seems to have repeated itself and will continue to repeat itself if we don’t have a real conversation about where it came from. Everyday viewers need to see why what Bell said was wrong, and closed door meetings will not achieve this goal.

As an award-winning anchor who has influence over her viewers, Bell also has a responsibility most Facebook users don’t. While her actions weren’t deliberately hateful, her viewers — looking to her for factual updates on the crime — could’ve taken her actions and words as the truth.

Journalists spend their lives getting people to trust and listen to them — and that doesn’t turn off on social media. What Bell did is perpetuate stereotypes and myths from a position of esteem.

Bell was representative of the larger problem of systemic racism, eclipsed here by her high-profile status. Until we address the larger problem, we can count on more Wendy Bells and more apologies — but little change.