394261 11: Smoke pours from the World Trade Center after it was hit by two hijacjked passenger planes September 11, 2001 in New York City in an alleged terrorist attack. (Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation wants you to know it’s journalists can call 9/11 an act of terrorism after all. The network, saying that “confusion has been swirling” about guidance CBC News gave its journalists about the use of the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” had raised questions and “become an impediment to clarity and public understanding.”
With the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania less than two weeks away, Warren Kinsella, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, reported that CBC journalists had received a memo advising its reporters and editors not to “refer to the Sept. 11th attacks at terrorist attacks.”
Logo of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC/Radio-Canada, a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. Friday, May 20, 2022, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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‘That is the last thing we want to do’
In an editor’s note published Friday on the CBC website, Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards at public trust, said that the leaked internal memo had created “confusion” as the network’s “internal language guide was published and amplified by a number of outlets without full context or explanation.”
Boshra added that “it had caused significant concern, anger and hurt for many people who believe CBC News seeks to minimize or obscure the horror of that day and who was behind it.”
He promised that “we intend to mark the forthcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11 with extensive, special coverage that will continue to respectfully and thoughtfully reflect on the monumental nature of this tragedy.”
NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 11: Firefighter Gerard McGibbon, of Engine 283 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, prays after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed September 11, 2001 after two hijacked airplanes slammed into the twin towers in a terrorist attack that killed some 3,000 people. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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‘We have reported fully and accurately’
Boshra said that the CBC had published “thousands of stories” over the past 25 years, and insisted that the network’s journalists had given viewers and readers “an unflinching account of the devastating attacks by al-Qaeda, the hunt and prosecution of those responsible, the thousands of lives that were lost on that day and the incalculable loss and grief experienced by so many others as a result.”
Why restrict the use of “terror” and “terrorism”? Boshra said the network–like other news organizations, including the Associated Press–has used “extreme care around the use” of those words as they have become politicized.
“CBC News has never said what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was not terrorism, as some commentators have stated in recent days,” Boshra explained. “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.”
That means that CBC News stories use the words “terror” and “terrorism,” but in the context of others describing 9/11 in that way, rather than reporters themselves saying what happened that day was terrorism.
TOPSHOT – American flags and flowers line the memorial pool at the National September 11 Memorial to mark the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2023 in New York. (Photo by Bryan R. Smith / AFP) (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)
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The network–in the face of widespread ridicule and criticism–reviewed its guidance and “we have decided to adjust it to clarify that direct attribution is not required for describing the historic events of 9/11 at terrorism.”
“We are doing so to remove what has unfortunately (and unintentionally) become an impediment to clarity and public understanding.”
“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.”