CBC Backtracks on 9/11 Terrorism Language

Clear Facts

• Canada’s taxpayer-funded CBC instructed journalists not to describe the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as “terrorist attacks.”
• After public outrage, CBC reversed that rule and said 9/11 may be called terrorism without extra attribution.
• Al-Qaeda murdered nearly 3,000 people when hijackers crashed passenger jets in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Canada’s state-funded broadcaster has been forced to reverse an internal order that told reporters not to call Sept. 11 a terrorist attack. The directive leaked as the 25th anniversary of the massacre approached and infuriated people who refuse to sand down the truth about that day.

The memo was written by Basem Boshra, CBC News’ senior director of journalistic standards and public trust. It went to CBC News staff and treated the worst attack on American soil in modern history like a wording problem instead of an act of war.

The leaked guidance was blunt. It told journalists to drop the word ordinary Americans have used for 25 years.

“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,”

the memo said. It recast the slaughter as hijackings that led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Manhattan, and noted that the World Trade Center was destroyed.

That is not careful journalism. That is moral cowardice dressed up as style guidance.

CBC later released a follow-up memo after the leak blew up, titled “How and why CBC News will adjust its 9/11 language guidance.” Boshra tried to explain away the outrage as a misunderstanding.

“CBC News finds itself once again in a swirl of confusion about how our journalists use the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism,’ this time about the al-Qaeda attacks on New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001,”

the memo said.

“The confusion stems from the leak of an excerpt from our internal language guide that was published and amplified by a number of outlets without full context or explanation. It has caused significant concern, anger and hurt for many people who believe CBC News seeks to minimize or obscure the horror of that day and who was behind it,”

Boshra continued.

“That is the last thing we want to do. And our reporting on 9/11, through thousands of stories over the past 25 years, is an unflinching account of the devastating attacks by al-Qaeda, the hunt and prosecution of those responsible, the thousands of lives that were lost on that day and the incalculable loss and grief experienced by so many others as a result.”

If the coverage was so unflinching, staff would not have needed a gag order on the word “terrorist.” Families who buried husbands, wives, and children that week do not need a seminar on attribution.

“And we intend to mark the forthcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11 with extensive, special coverage that will continue to respectfully and thoughtfully reflect on the monumental nature of this tragedy.”

Respect starts with naming the crime. Al-Qaeda terrorists murdered civilians in the name of a radical Islamist cause, and no newsroom policy can launder that fact.

“CBC’s reporting on terrorism, wherever it occurs, has always been guided by the principle of attribution, and like other major news organizations, it has been our practice for decades,”

he explained. That hedge is how elite media keep their options open when the next attack does not fit the preferred narrative.

“But to be clear, CBC News has never said what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was not terrorism, as some commentators have stated in recent days. We have reported fully and accurately on the reasons and motivations for those attacks as determined by police, governments and an independent commission. We’ve just made sure to do it with attribution,”

he said. Telling reporters not to call 9/11 terrorist attacks is not attribution. It is erasure.

“Clarity and understanding are at the heart of our journalism. The leaked excerpt without context or explanation has raised more questions for the public that we must now answer,”

he said.

“After reviewing our current language guidance, we have decided to adjust it to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 as terrorism.”

In other words, they got caught. Only then did the rule change.

“We are doing so to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding,”

he concluded.

“At the same time, as new acts of politically or ideologically motivated violence occur in our world, we will continue to follow the journalistically sound practice of attributing causes and motivations to officials and experts.”

So 9/11 gets a special exception after a public beating. Future jihadist attacks can still be wrapped in fog until the right officials supply the approved labels.

The same week, a military judge threw out a 2007 confession from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot. The court said those statements were not given voluntarily, stretching out a case that has already waited decades for trial.

A trial date is now set for June 2028 for Mohammed and three co-defendants. The killers still get process. The victims still get lectures about language.

Americans do not need a state broadcaster to tell them what they saw with their own eyes. Nineteen hijackers turned airliners into weapons, brought down the Twin Towers, struck the Pentagon, and murdered nearly 3,000 people.

Calling that terrorism is not bias. Refusing to say it is.

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