Longtime Pittsburgh talk show host Lynn Cullen confirmed Tuesday she is quitting as a panelist on WQED-TV’s “4802.”
Ms. Cullen echoed her sentiments from a day earlier, when she said on her Pittsburgh City Paper podcast, “I am not again ever going to do that show.” A tense verbal exchange with panelist Heather Heidelbaugh, attorney and Allegheny County councilwoman, was the last straw.
“I literally felt like I’d been ambushed,” Ms. Cullen said on her podcast.
Ms. Cullen, formerly a staple on the AM airwaves, hosts her own online show on Pittsburgh City Paper’s website. She had been a regular on “4802” — a live half-hour public service program — for at least three years.
In the past, she and Ms. Heidelbaugh often were sparring partners on “4802,” but Friday’s show got out of hand.
The program kicked off with a discussion on recent protests to raise the U.S. minimum wage. Ms. Heidelbaugh, a Republican, said she didn’t believe raising the wage was realistic. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Cullen prefaced remarks saying, “I feel so passionately on this issue that I’m going to try to keep myself in check as I address it.”
Some of the others chuckled, as Ms. Cullen is not known for being soft-spoken. She decried large companies’ failure to pay a higher living wage and said that capitalism is an economic but not “moral” or “ethical” system.
Ms. Heidelbaugh quietly responded: “That’s despicable. But, go ahead.”
The conversation went downhill from there. The other panelists, Pittsburgh City Council president Bruce Kraus and Kathleen Jones Goldman, chair of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association, became spectators to a contentious debate. At one point, Ms. Heidelbaugh suggested to Ms. Cullen, “Why don’t you go down to Cuba and live in Cuba, where there’s socialism and everybody lives in poverty?”
Moderator Chris Moore chided the women, at one point pleading, “Children, children, children, please.” Mr. Kraus added, “This is SO unproductive.” And Mr. Moore moved on to the next topic after noting “You’re acting a bit immature.”
Ms. Heidelbaugh and representatives from WQED did not responded to interview requests.
An archived version of the show can be viewed at WQED.org/tv/watch.
Maria Sciullo: msciullo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1478 or @MariaSciulloPG.
First Published: April 22, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
