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UPDATE, 10:50 a.m., Fri., April 10:
On April 10, the Original Mattress Factory announced that it has decided to pull its advertisements from Wendy Bell’s show on KDKA Radio. An advertisement for the company was played after Bell’s segment aired on April 5, where she questioned if it was worth shutting down many parts of the American economy to avoid millions of Americans dying from coronavirus. (Full story below).
In a tweet, the Cleveland-based company announced that it does not agree with Bell’s statements. It said the company sponsors the entire station, but spoke to KDKA Radio about removing ads from Bell’s program. Original Mattress Factory has 10 stores located throughout Pittsburgh. It’s unclear if the Original Mattress Factory will pull advertisements from KDKA Radio entirely.
Original story, posted on April 8, 2020:
On Sun., April 5, Wendy Bell gave a monologue on her KDKA radio show similar to what some other right-wing radio hosts have espoused. She questioned if it was worth shutting down many parts of the American economy to avoid millions of Americans dying from coronavirus.
“They need to shut down the economy? There’s a cost. Everything shuts down. But to what end?” Bell asked during her show. “Yes, every life lost is one too many. Yes, that is the ‘talking point,’ that is what we are going to say. But, ultimately dollar and cents boil down to, are you going to bankrupt America and the future for less than 1% of our population? Many of whom are already ill, or aged. I am on the fence. Do you see?”
People vulnerable to negative health effects from COVID-19 include the elderly, those with autoimmune disorders and compromised immune systems, as well as those with respiratory issues, like asthma. More than 25 million Americans have asthma.
If 1% of the U.S. population were to die from COVID-19, the country would lose more than 3.2 million people. Economic experts have said such a large population loss could still result in a powerful negative effect on the U.S. economy.
“Should we bankrupt our country for 100,000 or even two million lives?” Bell asked on her show.
Bell’s comments received widespread criticism on social media. Former KDKA anchor Jim Lokay said Bell’s comments were sad, and questioned why the radio station would allow them.
Some people on social media incorrectly assumed that Bell worked for the KDKA television station, and KDKA TV went as far as pointing out that Bell doesn’t work for them, repeatedly directing people to the radio station. A request for comment to KDKA program director Jim Graci went unanswered.
WESA producer Kiley Koscinski formerly worked at KDKA radio and said Bell’s comments don’t live up to the storied history of the station.
“It’s an embarrassment for the good journalists that still work there and for Pittsburgh,” tweeted Koscinski. “Shame on you Wendy Bell.”
In a longer video of Bell’s program posted on Facebook, she goes on to compare the closures in response to the global pandemic to “socialism.”
“This is America? Where you’re told you can’t go to school, you can’t go to work, you shouldn’t go to the grocery store, but you should wear a mask and you shouldn’t question authority?” said Bell. “What does that feel like to you? It feels a lot like socialism to me.”
Coronavirus arrived in the U.S. in late January and has spread exponentially in the U.S. starting in mid March. There are more than 417,000 positive cases and more than 14,000 people have died because of the virus. In Allegheny County, there are 720 known cases and 10 deaths.
Health experts have said that Allegheny County’s proactive efforts at sheltering in place and social distancing may be helping to lower the county’s relatively low number of cases compared to other large counties.
Last week, other comments Bell made were cited in an FCC petition from the media group called Free Press. The group cited Bell for comments she made on March 19 that compared the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Bell said then she believes the news media was hyping coronavirus out of dislike for President Donald Trump. Free Press called her comments dangerous disinformation.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Tony Norman also criticized Bell for her words about the coronavirus.
This is not the first time Bell has been in hot water over her comments. In 2016, Bell was fired from her anchor job at WTAE after she made racist comments following the Wilkinsburg mass shootings, where five Black people were killed.
Before police released any information on the perpetrators, Bell alleged, without evidence, on social media that the shooters were “young black men, likely teens or in their early 20s” and that they had “multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs.”
She responded to that criticism with an anecdote in which she told a Black busser at Cheesecake Factory he was “going to make it.”
Bell was hired by KDKA radio in December of 2018. Since then, she has come to the defense of sexist cartoons drawn in the Post-Gazette and lobbed stereotypical insults at working dads.
The only advertiser that can be heard during that segment of Bell’s April 5 show shared on Facebook is the Original Mattress Factory (OMF). Chris Gardner of the Original Mattress Factory said the company was “unaware of the comment and obviously do not agree with it.” Gardner added that the Original Mattress Factory will be investigating the matter further and deciding whether or not the company wants to continue advertising during Bell’s program.
“We do advertise on KDKA but do not advertise specifically on that show,” said Gardner. “OMF is fully cooperating with all of the mandates that the state government has come out with and we are currently closed.”
This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2020.
Won’t she ever go away? What a complete waste of oxygen. She proves it time and again.
Ya no.. I didn’t know if she got a bad rap before & I haven’t seen her since …. but yikes …. she is a horrible human, but I can tell her this… if she was laying in front of me dying and I was told I could spend all of my money to save her life? I would do it!! Because life means more than money…. I think she just wants to be a shock jock…. she should have a medal of freedom in no time 😖
I suppose this cultist is against abortion. Kill the aged, but let the young replenish the world?
What happened to free press? Wendy Bell is an actual journalist!
She does not march in lockstep with the liberal socialist media, sharing the same tired talking points.
Good for WendyBell!
Keep telling the truth!
I wonder how old her parents are. Would she be willing to sacrifice them so easily? Probably not, people like her think they deserve better than anyone else.
If it’s socialism to want to keep alive the people who built this country, fought our wars and worked their fingers to the bone for their families…then send me a hat with a red star
Wendy has completely changed, I know her husband does not agree with this ( at least to her face ) She is reever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.”ally animated and looks like she went to the Rush Limbaugh school of shock radio. The “greatest generation ” is who she is referring to, we’re done with you now, you did you sacrifice on the beaches of Normandy so I could say this, but its time to die… you are F..ing up our economy now!
I will gladly and proudly stay at home for our elderly generation.
“And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.
Reach out to her manager, Jim Graci at KDKA Radio and express your displeasure.
jamesgraci@entercom.com
As long at they don’t hear it directly, they won’t change. She is a total waste. Looking for a national shock jock gig.
Wendy Bell mis-names the kind of government that does these things: This is America? Where you’re told you can’t go to school, you can’t go to work, you shouldn’t go to the grocery store, but you should wear a mask and you shouldn’t question authority? said Bell. What does that feel like to you? It feels a lot like socialism to me.” It’s more like North Korean totalitarianism. Also, no one — even the idiot UK disease modeler who started out saying 2.2 million Americans were going to die of the corona virus — never said 1 percent of Americans would die. She said the question was whether it made sense to shut down an entire country (and create hardship and misery for tens of millions, esepcially poor people, and drive up social problems like suicides and child abuse etc) 1 percent OR LESS would die.
Sorry, I ran out of editing time on that version ….Let’s try this one:
Wendy Bell was on the right track, but she mis-names the kind of government that does these kinds of things:
“This is America? Where you’re told you can’t go to school, you can’t go to work, you shouldn’t go to the grocery store, but you should wear a mask and you shouldn’t question authority? said Bell. What does that feel like to you? It feels a lot like socialism to me.”
It’s actually more like North Korean totalitarianism.
Also, no one — not even the idiot UK disease modeler who started out saying 2.2 million Americans were going to die of the corona virus — ever said 1 percent of Americans would die of Covid-19.
Bell said the question — perfectly legit one to ask in the real world — was whether it made sense to shut down an entire country (and create hardship and misery for tens of millions, especially poor people, and drive up social problems like suicides and child abuse etc) for LESS than 1% of our population?”
She made a common error of using 1 percent to indicate a small number. Once Yoko Ono said after John Lennon was killed that most Americans were good people and only 1 percent were murderers. She was saying roughly that 2 million Americans were murders — when there were roughly fewer than 20,000 homicides in the USA at the time. You can do the math, but Yoko’s 2 million figure was 100 times greater than reality.
Mark Levin: If You Don’t See The Attempt At A “Coup” By Dems To Sabotage Trump, “You Are Blind”
https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/1025368688176689152
‘YOU NEVER LET A SERIOUS CRISIS GO TO WASTE. AND WHAT I MEAN BY THAT IT’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO THINGS YOU THINK YOU COULD NOT DO BEFORE.” – Rahm Emanuel
Hillary Clinton says Coronavirus would be a terrible crisis to waste!