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CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement prior to the policy change that it was the public broadcaster’s practice to use ‘extreme caution’ in using the words terrorism or terrorist.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
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 “terrorism.”
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.
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.
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.
He said the “leaked excerpt” of its language policy has raised questions for the CBC that the public broadcaster must now answer.
“We are doing so to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding,” he said.
“At 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.”
Culture Minister Marc Miller praised the move on social media, calling it a “welcome change to what was a piece of pedantic and foolish guidance that caused legitimate anger.”
Boshra’s post was published less than an hour after Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree issued a press release saying the Canadian government “has always recognized 9/11 as the deadliest terrorist attack in history, and we unequivocally condemn terrorism in all its forms.”
In the post, Boshra said CBC News “has 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’ve just made sure to do it with attribution.”
Earlier this week, Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella reported on a memo, in which he says CBC News staff are told “do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”
That led to a wave of criticism in the United States.
“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.”
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.”
CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said in an emailed statement prior to the policy change that it was 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 long-standing 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 to 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.”