{"id":187425,"date":"2026-08-29T06:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T06:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/187425\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T06:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T06:49:18","slug":"cbc-changes-policy-that-says-not-to-label-9-11-attacks-as-terrorism-after-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/187425\/","title":{"rendered":"CBC changes policy that says not to label 9\/11 attacks as \u2018terrorism\u2019 after criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement prior to the policy change that it was the public broadcaster\u2019s practice to use ‘extreme caution’ in using the words terrorism or terrorist.Tijana Martin\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

CBC\/Radio-Canada is changing its language policy to state that direct attribution will no longer be required when describing 9\/11 as an act of \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision comes after CBC came under fire over its long-standing policy of not labelling specific attacks as terrorism, which it restated in a memo to staff ahead of the 25 anniversary of Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

The director of the FBI, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Republican members of Congress and the Conservative party all criticized the CBC following media reports about a memo that reminded journalists of its policy.<\/p>\n

Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust, said in a blog post late Friday afternoon that CBC would be making the change.<\/p>\n

He said the \u201cleaked excerpt\u201d of its language policy has raised questions for the CBC that the public broadcaster must now answer. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing so to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture Minister Marc Miller praised the move on social media, calling it a \u201cwelcome change to what was a piece of pedantic and foolish guidance that caused legitimate anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boshra\u2019s post was published less than an hour after Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree issued a press release saying the Canadian government \u201chas always recognized 9\/11 as the deadliest terrorist attack in history, and we unequivocally condemn terrorism in all its forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the post, Boshra said CBC News \u201chas 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\u2019ve just made sure to do it with attribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella reported on a memo, in which he says CBC News staff are told \u201cdo not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to a wave of criticism in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny agency in Canada that doesn\u2019t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in U.S. history will no longer have friend in this FBI,\u201d FBI Director Kash Patel said an online post late Thursday.<\/p>\n

A group of Republican representatives in Congress also posted earlier in the day: \u201cWhat possible motive could there be for sanitizing the worst terrorist attack on American soil? Care to explain, @Canada?\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra weighed in, sharing Patel\u2019s post and saying that the FBI has been responsible or instrumental in disrupting terrorist and violent criminal organizations operating in Canada multiple times this year.<\/p>\n

Hoekstra added: \u201cFailure to recognize and confront radical and terrorist ideologies significantly endangers our efforts to establish and harmonize a shared national and economic security partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in an online post Friday that to \u201ccall 9\/11 anything other than a terrorist attack is an appalling distortion of history. It dishonours the victims and their families, the survivors, and the first responders who suffered from the horrors of that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement prior to the policy change that it was the public broadcaster\u2019s practice to use \u201cextreme caution\u201d in using the words terrorism or terrorist.<\/p>\n

She said the memo \u201cwas a reminder of the long-standing practice that favours the use of these terms with attribution in our reporting, a practice shared by many of the world\u2019s top journalistic organizations.\u201d Kelly did not provide a copy of the memo when it was requested by The Canadian Press. <\/p>\n

She pointed to a 2023 blog post by CBC editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon. It says CBC often uses the word terrorist, but with attribution. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat means they also tell the audience who has used it and in what context,\u201d Fenlon wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttribution of the word \u2019terrorist\u2019 has been our policy for decades \u2013 mirrored by other news organizations such as the BBC, AP, AFP and Reuters, among many others,\u201d Fenlon wrote.<\/p>\n

He said CBC \u201cdoes not itself designate specific groups as terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fenlon posted an excerpt of the CBC\u2019s language guide that explains the policy. It says attacks such as Sept. 11, the London bombings in 2005 or the suicide bombing at a Moscow airport in 2011 should be referred to as attacks, not terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy restricting ourselves to neutral language, we aren\u2019t faced with the problem of calling one incident a \u2019terrorist act\u2019 (e.g., the destruction of the World Trade Center) while classifying another as, say, a mere \u2019bombing\u2019 (e.g., the destruction of a crowded shopping mall in the Middle East),\u201d the post says. <\/p>\n

The Canadian Press stylebook also suggests avoiding the word terrorism except when attributing the term to authorities or others; however it also states: \u201cAfter the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, almost everyone accepted that slamming hijacked passenger jets into office towers was terrorism. But there are often discrepancies in the way the media define and interpret other activities.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement prior to the policy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,361],"class_list":["post-187425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-pleasemod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}