Outrage in Canada: CBC journalists asked not to refer to 9/11 as "terrorism"
Bassam Bouchehra, a senior official at the Canadian public broadcaster CBC, issued a demand to all network reporters to refer to the deadliest terrorist attack in history as "hijackings that led to the crashing of passenger planes." Conservative Member of Parliament Rachel Thomas called the directive "absolutely shameful."
A few weeks before the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) sparked a storm after instructing its journalists not to describe the deadliest attack in U.S. history as a "terrorist attack." The internal memo, distributed to reporters and editors across all CBC news platforms, included a clear and emphasized instruction: "Do not refer to the September 11 attacks as terrorist attacks." Instead, the following phrasing was suggested: "The hijackings led to the crashing of passenger planes in Washington, Pennsylvania, and Manhattan. The World Trade Center was destroyed."
The document was first exposed by Canadian journalist and political consultant Warren Kinsella in a column published in the Toronto Sun. Later, the National Post reported that it had also obtained a copy. The memo was signed with the initials BB by Bassam Bouchehra, the senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC. Kinsella accused the corporation of "rewriting the historical record" and tailoring facts to fit an ideological viewpoint. According to him, this is an "Orwellian" directive.
CBC rejected the claim that the corporation had determined the attack was not an act of terror. A spokesperson for the corporation, Kerry Kelly, said that "there is no truth to the claim that our journalists were instructed to declare that this was not an act of terror." According to her, CBC's long-standing policy is to use the words "terrorist" and "terror" only when attributing them to authorized sources, including governments, authorities, experts, and politicians, and not as an independent determination by the newsroom.
The policy was at the center of similar criticism after the October 7 massacre, when CBC employees were instructed not to call Hamas members "terrorists" on behalf of the corporation, even though Hamas is defined as a terrorist organization in Canada. The editor-in-chief of CBC News, Brodie Fenlon, explained at the time that the terms are loaded with "meaning, politics, and emotion" and could, according to him, interfere with journalistic work. He emphasized that the policy has been in place at the corporation for decades.
The explanation did not appease the critics. Conservative Member of Parliament Rachel Thomas called the directive "absolutely shameful":
"Refusing to call it an act of terror dishonors the victims, their families, the survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of that day. September 11 was an act of terror. Period."
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Canada also attacked the corporation. "Blurring one of the most well-known acts of terror in modern history into 'hijackings that led to crashes' is a complete collapse of journalistic standards," the organization stated. In the September 11, 2001 attacks, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists murdered 2,977 people, including 24 Canadian citizens. The Canadian government itself defines the events on its official website as the "September 11 terrorist attacks."
