This week, CBC sent a memo to its journalists and editors instructing them not to describe the attack on the United States on 11 September 2001 as a “terrorist attack”.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is Canada’s public national broadcaster and can be compared with Norway’s equivalent, NRK.
The memo, which was first reported by an astonished Warren Kinsella in the Toronto Sun, used bold type to emphasise the directive to CBC employees.
Four passenger aircraft were hijacked and deliberately crashed, one into each of the towers of the World Trade Center, the third aircraft targeted the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers on board revolted.
The public broadcaster reaffirmed that it would avoid using words such as “terrorist” and “terrorism” when describing events, and instructed its employees to follow the longstanding corporate policy that had previously landed it in trouble during its coverage of 7 October 2023, according to the New York Post.
“Do not refer to the September 11 attacks as terrorist attacks. The hijackings resulted in passenger aircraft crashing in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center was destroyed,” the memo stated.
The atrocity that most of the world regards as the quintessential example of a “terrorist attack” should therefore not be described as such, according to CBC.
A total of 2,996 people died in the attack, including the 19 hijackers, all of whom were motivated by Islamism. This death toll applies to the day of the attack itself and does not include the deaths that occurred later as a result of illnesses and cancers linked to 11 September.
According to Kinsella, the memo originated with Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News. Boshra is a Muslim immigrant who was born in Egypt.
Basem Boshra is a Muslim immigrant who was born in Egypt. Photo: Concordia
Kinsella approached CBC to ask for further explanations as to why “hijackings” that “resulted in crashes involving passenger aircraft” should not be regarded as terrorism.
CBC spokeswoman Kerry Kelly responded as follows:
CBC’s longstanding guidelines on language concerning the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” are that these words should preferably be used with attribution, a practice shared by many of the world’s leading journalistic organisations. Our general manager and editor-in-chief has previously written publicly on this subject.
The response Kelly gave to The Post was, if anything, even worse:
Our focus is to report the facts about such atrocities with accuracy, clarity and detail; to convey the scale and extent of acts of violence wherever they occur; to quote those affected and to convey the views of government officials and experts on these events. We bear witness.
But CBC News does not itself designate particular groups as terrorists or particular acts as terrorism, regardless of region or events, because these words are so laden with meaning, politics and emotion that they can end up becoming obstacles to our journalism.
An entire world described the tragedy as a terrorist attack. But CBC will not do that, almost 25 years later.
The Post pointed out that even Osama bin Laden described the 11 September attack as an act of “blessed terror”, which one would think should be good enough for CBC.
Speaking to the National Post, Kelly claimed that it was “completely wrong to claim that our journalists have been encouraged to declare that this was not an act of terrorism” – even though the memo literally said precisely that, even in bold type.
The CBC spokeswoman also attempted to justify the memo by pointing out that CBC refused to call the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israel on 7 October 2023 “terrorism”.
Kelly referred to a blog post from October 2023, written by CBC News editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon, which presented a variation on the old saying “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. CBC journalists were also instructed at the time not to describe the Hamas attack as “terrorism”.
CBC’s memo provoked strong reactions on both sides of the border between the United States and Canada.
Conservative MP Rachael Thomas, a Conservative representative who sits in Canada’s House of Commons, called the memo “absolutely shameful” and accused the broadcaster of “choosing to redefine terrorism in a way that downplays the atrocity of 9/11” in a post on X.
“Refusing to call it an act of terrorism dishonours the victims, their families, the survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of that day.
9/11 was an act of terrorism. Full stop. Trying to whitewash or rewrite this history is deeply offensive and does a disservice to everyone who was affected by the attacks.”
This is absolutely shameful.
⁰The CBC is choosing to redefine terrorism in a way that downplays the atrocity of 9/11.
⁰Refusing to call it an act of terrorism dishonours the victims, their families, the survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of that day.… pic.twitter.com/svqqyk65fq— Rachael Thomas (@RachaelThomasAB) August 26, 2026
The social media account of the Republicans in the House of Representatives in Washington is also asking questions:
“What other motive could there be for whitewashing the worst terrorist attack on American soil?”
Some suggest that Canada’s public broadcaster may have behaved this way because of the trade conflict between the United States and Canada.
But this does not explain why CBC has been working to whitewash terrorism for many years now, including after 7 October 2023, when there was no ongoing trade conflict between the United States and Canada and Joe Biden was still president.
