CBC permits journalists to describe 9/11 as terrorism
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Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC, has changed its internal guidance after criticism over instructions not to describe the 11 September 2001 attacks as “terrorist attacks”. The broadcaster said the leaked wording lacked context and had caused hurt and confusion, particularly ahead of the attacks’ 25th anniversary. CBC now says journalists may describe the historic events of 9/11 directly as terrorism without attributing that description to a source.
CBC said its previous approach reflected a long-standing principle of attributing causes and motives for politically or ideologically motivated violence to officials and experts. It maintained that it had never denied 9/11 was terrorism and said its reporting had documented al-Qaeda’s responsibility, the deaths of thousands of people and the wider grief caused by the attacks. The original internal wording described the events as hijackings involving passenger jets crashing in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania, and stated that the World Trade Center was destroyed.
- CBC will allow 9/11 to be described directly as terrorism.
- The change followed criticism of leaked internal guidance.
- CBC says attribution remains standard for new violent events.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Allowing journalists to call 9/11 terrorist attacks directly recognises an overwhelmingly established historical fact and avoids language that can seem needlessly evasive towards victims, survivors and the public. Supporters argue that clarity is especially important for an event whose perpetrators, motives and consequences have been extensively documented, and that ordinary descriptive language need not compromise editorial independence. The change can therefore be seen as restoring accuracy and humanity while preserving CBC’s ability to scrutinise contested claims in other cases.
The case against
A cautious attribution policy reflects the legitimate journalistic principle that broadcasters should avoid presenting assessments of motive or political violence as unquestioned fact when those assessments may be disputed, strategically deployed or incomplete. Defenders of the earlier guidance could argue that consistent standards protect impartiality, particularly in current conflicts where labels such as terrorism carry serious moral and political implications. From this perspective, the concern is not whether 9/11 was terrorism, but whether making exceptions risks weakening a discipline designed to keep reporting precise and independent.
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