Conservative media personality Wendy Bell appears to be getting another shot on the air, this time at WJAS Pittsburgh.
Ms. Bell made the announcement in a Wednesday Facebook post in which she also wrote, “America needs common sense conservatism!! Let’s roll!!!”
It’s OFFICIAL!! Woo hoo!!!!
Posted by Wendy Bell Radio on Wednesday, January 20, 2021
“We were able to have the have a conversation with Wendy, and we feel it’s mutually beneficial to put her on,” said J.D. Turco, senior vice president of St. Barnabas Health System, which owns WJAS. “We have high hopes for Wendy and for WJAS.”
She will be on the air five days a week starting Monday, with shows at 11 a.m.-noon Monday through Thursday and a 9 a.m.-noon slot on Fridays, according to the Facebook post. Those shows will be accessible through Talk Radio 1320 WJAS AM and 99.1 FM, as well as the iHeartRadio app.
WJAS Pittsburgh was acquired by St. Barnabas in November 2020 for $2.05 million and features conservative radio shows hosted by big names like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity.
Mr. Turco, who is also the chief financial officer of St. Barnabas Broadcasting, said Ms. Bell will fit in well with the station’s conservative talk-show format and that she was hired after “considerable thought” regarding her past behavior.
“We can’t predict the future, but we do think we’ve done ample due diligence, and hopefully it’ll all work out,” he said.
Ms. Bell spent 18 years as a journalist with WTAE-TV, winning 21 regional Emmy Awards and becoming an anchor. She drew controversy in 2016 from race-related comments she made on Facebook after a mass shooting in Wilkinsburg in which five adults and an unborn child were killed.
WTAE-TV fired her shortly after the comments were posted on social media. Ms. Bell said at the time that she believed the station didn’t give her a “fair shake.” In 2018, she made waves again with more Facebook comments, this time regarding the #MeToo Movement.
In 2019, Ms. Bell became a KDKA Radio host. She garnered backlash again in April 2020 after an on-air diatribe regarding COVID-19-induced shutdowns, prompting KDKA-TV, which has different ownership than KDKA Radio, to distance itself from the radio station.
She was taken off the air in September last year after suggesting that park rangers should “shoot on sight” anyone caught vandalizing public monuments. Ms. Bell and Entercom, the company that owns KDKA Radio, mutually agreed to part ways a little more than a month later.
The WJAS gig will be Ms. Bell’s first full-time radio position since her departure from KDKA Radio.
“We spoke about issues that we would not like to resurface, things that happened that caused her demise at WTAE and KDKA [Radio],” Mr. Turco said. “We know where she stands, and she knows where we stand. We’ll see how it unfolds.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxel222.
First Published: January 21, 2021, 10:48 p.m.