A recently leaked internal communication from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has ignited widespread controversy and political backlash, as newsrooms prepare to mark the upcoming 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
The memo, distributed to reporters and editors by Basem Boshra, Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News, instructed staff to adhere to the public broadcaster's longstanding style guidelines regarding specific terminology.
According to copies of the internal message obtained and published by media outlets, staff were reminded not to use the phrase "terrorist attack" directly in their own voice. Instead, the text points toward the network's internal style guide, offering alternative descriptive phrasing:
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks. The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center was destroyed.”
In response to the public outcry, CBC representatives defended the guidance, emphasizing that it does not mean the broadcaster denies the nature of the historic tragedy. Rather, management claimed that the directive is part of a decades-old policy shared by several major international news organizations.
The policy requires journalists to attribute loaded or politically sensitive descriptors, such as "terrorist" or "terrorism", to credible sources, such as government officials, police authorities, courts, or expert witnesses, rather than adopting the labels directly as institutional facts.
In a previous public explanation addressing similar language debates, CBC Editor-in-Chief and General Manager Brodie Fenlon noted that terms like "terrorism" carry immense emotional and political weight. The rationale maintains that objective news organizations should focus strictly on reporting verifiable facts, casualty figures, and the physical scope of destruction while letting official attribution handle the legal and political definitions.
The leaked guidance drew immediate condemnation from critics and opposition politicians who argued the timing, coinciding closely with the milestone anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, was deeply insensitive.
Conservative politicians and commentators took to social media to denounce the policy, accusing the public broadcaster of sanitizing history and undermining the gravity of an event that reshaped global security. Critics argued that refusing to use the term directly creates unnecessary ambiguity around an act universally recognized by Western democracies as an explicit act of mass terror.
The debate highlights the ongoing tightrope major news outlets walk between maintaining strict institutional neutrality in their style guides and addressing events that carry profound emotional and historical resonance for the public.