Canada’s public broadcaster told its own journalists not to call the September 11 attacks terrorism.
CBC circulated an internal memo ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks instructing reporters and editors to avoid describing those attacks as terrorist attacks in their own voice. The guidance was first reported by Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella and later confirmed by CBC itself.
The memo came from Basem Boshra, CBC News senior director of journalistic standards and public trust. It was directed at reporters and editors across the network.
The document was explicit. “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” it read in part.
The memo went further, offering staff alternative language to use instead. According to the original report, the suggested framing read: “The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center was destroyed.”
The backlash was swift enough that CBC reversed course entirely.
The memo drew immediate attention for stripping out what most people, and most news organizations, treat as basic factual description. The September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people when hijacked commercial aircraft were used as weapons against the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
CBC’s about-face puts the broadcaster in the position of having both issued the guidance and then walked it back, raising questions about the editorial judgment that produced the memo in the first place.