CBC Tells Journalists Not to Call 9/11 a Terrorist Attack

Nearly 3,000 people were murdered by al Qaeda terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.

Twenty-five years later, Canada’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster is worried that calling it terrorism might sound too loaded.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is defending an internal memo instructing journalists: “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”

The guidance, written by CBC News senior standards executive Basem Boshra and first reported by Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella, tells staff to describe the events without independently applying the terms “terrorist” or “terrorism.”

CBC says that is not revisionism. It’s policy.

“It is the practice of the CBC to exercise extreme caution before using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism,’” Public Affairs Director Kerry Kelly told Fox News Digital.

Kelly said the broadcaster prefers those labels to be attributed because they carry political and emotional weight.

Here’s the problem: The FBI calls 9/11 “the most lethal terrorist attacks in history.”

Nineteen al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger jets, deliberately flew two into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, while passengers fought back aboard the fourth before it crashed in Pennsylvania.

This is not an unresolved semantic dispute!

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino called CBC’s memo “outrageous and insulting.”

Canadian Conservative MP Rachael Thomas was even cleaner: “9/11 was an act of terrorism. Full stop.”

Come on, CBC — do better.

More over at The New York Post:

Canada’s CBC instructs staff not to call 9/11 a ‘terrorist attack’ in news coverage https://t.co/AzmzqrnYZo pic.twitter.com/VSggadWlnd

— New York Post (@nypost) August 27, 2026