Published: 01:21 AM, 30 August 2026
CBC faces backlash for telling reporters not to call 9/11 'terrorist attacks'
Canadian public broadcaster CBC is facing backlash after it advised its journalists not to use the term "terror" when writing about the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Sept 11, 2011 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Forbes reports. A Toronto Sun columnist initially revealed the instruction, stating that CBC journalists had received a memo advising "do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks."
The CBC memo describes the destruction of the World Trade Center and damage to the Pentagon by the attacks as "hijackings [that] led to passenger jet crashes".
The decision sparked condemnation, with New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino saying the CBC was using minimising language that ignored the victims of the attacks and their families.
"The CBC guidance is frankly outrageous and insulting, but it stands as a stark warning for what happens when you allow institutions of public trust to be taken over by leftists and foreign interests," Paladino said.
"This is not merely a callous disregard for the memory of those who perished on 9/11, it is a deliberate effort to undermine the fundamental truth of what happened that day in direct service to Islamism, as Europe, Canada, and the United States become increasingly overwhelmed by Islamist politics."
In the face of the backlash, the CBC defended its decision.
"It is the practice of the CBC to exercise extreme caution before using the words 'terrorist' and 'terrorism,'" CBC public affairs director Kerry Kelly said Thursday, stating that the network's preference is for those terms to be used with attribution, or only when a source or interview subject says them.
The CBC is also not the only news outlet to distance itself from the terminology. The Associated Press told reporters and editors in its stylebook that while terrorism is "the calculated use of violence, especially against civilians, to create terror," the terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" should be avoided.
"(They) have become politicized, and often are applied inconsistently. Because they can be used to label such a wide range of actions and events, and because the debate around them is so intense, detailing what happened is more precise and better serves audiences."
The CBC's policy on the use of "terror" and "terrorist" has sparked controversy before. After Hamas's 2023 attacks on Israel, the network said:
""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. Our focus is to report the facts of such atrocities with accuracy, clarity and detail; to convey the scale and scope of violent acts wherever they occur; to quote the people affected, and to convey the views of officials and experts on these events. We bear witness. But CBC News 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."
