Staff Reports
Something odd leaked out of Canada’s public broadcaster this week: an internal CBC memo told reporters not to call the Sept. 11 attacks “terrorist attacks,” and instead to frame them as “hijackings” that “led to passenger jet crashes.” The note, attributed to Basem Boshra, Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News, has sparked predictable outrage. People aren’t mad because they like dramatic headlines — they’re mad because language like this rewrites history and insults victims.
CBC’s excuse: editorial caution or cowardice?
CBC has doubled down, saying the memo only repeats a long-standing policy to “prefer” attribution when using loaded words like “terrorist” and “terrorism.” Brodie Fenlon, General Manager and Editor‑in‑Chief of CBC News, has publicly argued the network must “exercise extreme caution” before labeling events. That’s a defensible principle in some contested stories. But anyone who thinks calling 9/11 anything else is mere nuance is either asleep at the wheel or doing PR for bad policy. There’s cautious journalism, and then there’s sanitizing mass murder with bureaucratic phrasing.
Why this matters: not just semantics
Newsrooms do need style rules. The BBC and other outlets counsel caution, and fair enough — not every violent act gets the same label. But 9/11 is not ambiguous. Thousands were killed by organized extremist groups using terrorism as a tactic. To insist on avoiding the word in editorial voice is to flatten moral clarity and confuse the public. It also hands ammunition to those who say the media can’t tell right from wrong anymore. If journalists won’t call mass murder what it is, who will?
Practical fallout and the demand for answers
The leak raises real questions: Was this a one-off memo or a formal change that will affect headlines and anniversary coverage? Will CBC force anchors to erase “terrorism” from on-air packages? Public trust is fragile; instructions like this make it worse. CBC should publish the memo’s full context, have Basem Boshra explain the intent on the record, and clarify whether Fenlon’s guidance will apply to graphics, headlines, and voiceovers. A simple “we misspoke” won’t cut it — victims and viewers deserve a clearer answer than corporate euphemism.
Bottom line: words matter, credibility matters more
Good journalism separates facts from spin. When a public broadcaster tells reporters to avoid a plain description of a widely acknowledged crime, it signals a slippage away from truth and toward risk‑averse language games. That’s bad for news, bad for history, and frankly disrespectful to the families who lost loved ones. CBC can keep its stylebook, but it must not let caution become cowardice. Call it what it was: an act of terrorism. Anything less is just editorial hay‑covering for a busted moral compass.
