Canada’s CBC Reverses Course After Controversial Memo That Downplayed 9/11 Attacks

Canada’s public broadcaster (CBC) is reversing course after previously circulating an internal language reminder that instructed staff not to describe the September 11, 2001, attacks as terrorist attacks in their own voice. The guidance, which was issued ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks, was first reported by Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella and later confirmed by CBC.

The memo was written by Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News, and was addressed to reporters and editors. “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” the memo reads in part.

“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center (WTC in second reference) was destroyed,” it went on.

CBC said the document was not a new policy and did not instruct journalists to deny that the events were terrorism. Public affairs director Kerry Kelly said the corporation’s practice is “to exercise extreme caution before using the words terrorist and terrorism” and that the memo “was a reminder of the longstanding practice that favours the use of these terms with attribution in our reporting, a practice shared by many of the world’s top journalistic organizations.”

Kelly also said it was “wholly inaccurate to state our journalists have been urged to declare that this was not a terrorist act.”

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Canada’s national broadcasting corporation, CBC, sent out memo instructing all its journalists and editors not to describe the September 11 attacks as “terrorist attacks” ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

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The underlying rule appears in CBC’s internal language guide, previously discussed by editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon. That guide tells staff to “exercise extreme caution before using the words terrorist and terrorism” and to “generally avoid labelling any specific bombing or other assault as a ‘terrorist act’ unless this term is attributed.”

It lists the 2001 attacks among events CBC prefers to call “the Sept. 11 attacks” or a similar phrase, along with the 2005 London bombings, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and a 2011 Moscow airport bombing. Fenlon has written that CBC “does not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism” because the words “are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.”

U.S. officials in the Trump Administration responded after the memo became public. “Just this year, [the FBI] has been instrumental in or directly responsible for multiple disruptions of significant terrorist and violent criminal organizations operating within Canada. Failure to recognize and confront radical and terrorist ideologies significantly endangers our efforts to establish and harmonize a shared national and economic security partnership,” said U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra.

On Friday, Boshra published an editor’s blog saying a leaked excerpt had circulated “without full context or explanation” and had “caused significant concern, anger and hurt.” He wrote that CBC “has never said what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was not terrorism” and that the organization had “reported fully and accurately on the reasons and motivations for those attacks as determined by police, governments and an independent commission,” with attribution.

After a review, he said CBC would “adjust it to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 as terrorism,” adding that the change was intended “to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding.” For other acts of politically or ideologically motivated violence, he said CBC would continue attributing causes and motivations to officials and experts.

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