CBC faces criticism for policy that says not to label 9/11 attacks as ‘terrorism’ | Canada Voices

CBC/Radio-Canada’s long-standing policy of not labelling specific attacks as terrorism is facing criticism ahead of the 25 anniversary of Sept. 11.

CBC says its policy is to only use of the word terrorist or terrorism in attribution to whoever is using it, and to avoid designating specific groups or acts as terrorism. It says other media organizations, such as BBC and Reuters, have similar policies in place.

The public broadcaster has been under fire in the United States, including by the director of the FBI, following media reports about a memo that reminded journalists of the policy.

“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t 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,” FBI Director Kash Patel said an online post late Thursday.

A group of Republican representatives in Congress also posted earlier in the day: “What possible motive could there be for sanitizing the worst terrorist attack on American soil? Care to explain, @Canada?”

On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra weighed in, sharing Patel’s 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.

Hoekstra added: “Failure to recognize and confront radical and terrorist ideologies significantly endangers our efforts to establish and harmonize a shared national and economic security partnership.”

Earlier this week, Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella reported on the memo, in which he says CBC News staff are told “do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”

CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement that it’s the public broadcaster’s practice to use “extreme caution” in using the words terrorism or terrorist.

She said 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 did not provide a copy of the memo when it was requested by The Canadian Press. 

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. 

“That means they also tell the audience who has used it and in what context,” Fenlon wrote.

“Attribution of the word ’terrorist’ has been our policy for decades — mirrored by other news organizations such as the BBC, AP, AFP and Reuters, among many others,” Fenlon wrote.

He said CBC “does 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.”

Fenlon posted an excerpt of the CBC’s 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 as attacks, not terrorist attacks.

“By restricting ourselves to neutral language, we aren’t faced with the problem of calling one incident a ’terrorist act’ (e.g., the destruction of the World Trade Center) while classifying another as, say, a mere ’bombing’ (e.g., the destruction of a crowded shopping mall in the Middle East),” the post says. 

The Canadian Press stylebook also suggests avoiding the word terrorism except when attributing the term to authorities or others; however it also states: “After 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.” 

The Conservative Party also criticized the CBC in a release Thursday.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in an online post Friday that to “call 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.”

Conservative culture critic Rachael Thomas said Sept. 11 was a terrorist attack, “plain and simple.”

Thomas said the individual responsible for the directive should be fired, and CBC leadership should apologize.