CBC Reverses Course on Calling 9/11 ‘Terrorism’ After U.S. Officials and Conservatives Attack Its Policy

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A newsroom language rule that had existed for decades suddenly became an international political dispute just weeks before the 25th anniversary of September 11. CBC/Radio-Canada changed its guidance on August 28, allowing journalists to describe the 9/11 attacks as terrorism without attributing that characterization to an official, expert or other source.

The decision followed intense criticism from FBI Director Kash Patel, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Republican lawmakers and Canadian Conservatives after an internal reminder about CBC’s terminology policy became public. Yet the controversy was more complicated than claims that CBC had denied 9/11 was terrorism. The broadcaster said its existing rule concerned journalistic attribution, not the historical nature of the attacks. Its reversal creates a specific exception for an event whose meaning has been firmly established over a quarter-century.

CBC Made a Specific Exception for 9/11

CBC’s change is narrower than a wholesale abandonment of its terrorism terminology policy. Basem Boshra, CBC News’ senior director of journalistic standards and public trust, said direct attribution will no longer be necessary when journalists describe the September 11, 2001 attacks as terrorism. For other new incidents involving politically or ideologically motivated violence, the broadcaster said reporters will continue relying on officials and experts when assigning causes and motivations. In practical terms, a CBC journalist discussing 9/11 can now plainly describe it as a terrorist attack in the broadcaster’s own voice.

The change followed several days in which an internal language reminder became a much larger argument over history, neutrality and public trust. Boshra acknowledged that the leaked guidance had caused concern and had become an obstacle to clarity. CBC also stressed that it had never maintained that September 11 was not terrorism. Rather, its journalists had historically attributed that characterization to governments, investigators or other authoritative sources. The distinction was central to CBC’s defence, but by Friday the broadcaster concluded that maintaining it for 9/11 created more confusion than clarity.

The Original Memo Restated a Decades-Old Rule

The controversy began after reporting disclosed a memo circulated ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks. According to The Canadian Press and other outlets that reported on the memo, staff were reminded not to independently refer to September 11 as “terrorist attacks.” CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly explained that the instruction reflected the broadcaster’s longstanding preference for using the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” with attribution rather than independently assigning those labels. CBC did not provide The Canadian Press with the full internal memo when requested.

That distinction matters because the policy was not created specifically for the upcoming anniversary. CBC editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon explained the approach publicly in 2023, during another controversy surrounding terminology used in coverage of the Hamas attacks on Israel. CBC’s language guidance had also cited attacks including September 11, the 2005 London bombings and the 2011 Moscow airport bombing as examples where neutral descriptive language could be preferable. The reasoning was consistency: describing what happened first, while making clear whose assessment was being used when politically charged terminology entered the report.

Why Newsrooms Treat the Word ‘Terrorist’ Carefully

CBC’s approach was unusual to many members of the public, but attribution rules surrounding terrorism are not unique to the Canadian broadcaster. Reuters’ journalism handbook has historically instructed reporters not to label specific events as terrorism or specific individuals and groups as terrorist without attribution. Instead, journalists are encouraged to use precise descriptive words such as attacker, hijacker, gunman, bombing or attack. CBC has said comparable caution exists at organizations including Reuters, the BBC, AFP and The Associated Press.

The principle comes from a genuine journalistic problem: “terrorist” can describe an established category of violence, but governments, armed groups and political movements have also used the label strategically against opponents. International guidance for journalists covering terrorism therefore emphasizes accuracy, context and restraint, particularly during unfolding events when the perpetrator, motive or circumstances may still be unclear. The problem for CBC was that September 11 is no longer an unfolding event. After 25 years of investigations, government findings and historical documentation, critics argued that a rule designed to prevent premature judgments sounded artificial when applied to one of the most comprehensively investigated attacks in modern history.

The Historical Record Made 9/11 a Difficult Test Case

There is virtually no uncertainty in the official historical record about what occurred on September 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers seized four commercial aircraft. Two were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, another struck the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control. The independent 9/11 Commission documented more than 2,600 deaths at the World Trade Center, 125 at the Pentagon and 256 people aboard the four aircraft, including the hijackers. Later official counts identify 2,977 victims, excluding the perpetrators.

The U.S. government’s terminology is equally direct. The FBI describes 9/11 as the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil and says the investigation that followed became the largest and most complicated in the bureau’s history. Canada has also repeatedly used the same language. Federal government statements have described September 11 as terrorism for decades, while Canadian legislation and security policy enacted after the attacks were explicitly framed as responses to terrorism. Those records made CBC’s attribution requirement especially difficult to explain once the internal wording reached a wider audience.

U.S. Officials Turned a Media Dispute Into a Diplomatic Flashpoint

The dispute quickly crossed the border. FBI Director Kash Patel issued one of the strongest reactions, accusing organizations that refused to reject the CBC guidance of distorting history and insulting those killed in the attack. Republican members of Congress also challenged the broadcaster publicly, asking what motive there could be for what they described as sanitizing the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Their criticism transformed what might otherwise have remained an internal Canadian media-standards disagreement into a cross-border political story.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra added a national-security dimension. Sharing Patel’s criticism, Hoekstra argued that failing to recognize and confront radical and terrorist ideologies could undermine efforts to strengthen shared Canadian-American security. That rhetoric went considerably beyond a disagreement over newsroom vocabulary. It connected CBC’s editorial wording to the broader relationship between two countries whose intelligence, policing and border agencies cooperate extensively. Whether that connection was warranted or not, it increased the pressure considerably: an editorial style decision at a public broadcaster was suddenly being discussed alongside the language of continental security cooperation.

Conservatives Attacked the Policy — and Liberal Ministers Also Objected

Canadian Conservatives were equally forceful. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said describing 9/11 as anything other than a terrorist attack amounted to a distortion of history and dishonoured victims, survivors and first responders. Conservative culture critic Rachael Thomas also demanded accountability from CBC, arguing that September 11 was terrorism “plain and simple.” The criticism fit into the party’s broader scrutiny of the public broadcaster, but the terminology issue attracted attention beyond the usual partisan debate over CBC funding and governance.

Members of the Liberal government also criticized the original guidance. Culture Minister Marc Miller welcomed CBC’s reversal and characterized the earlier direction as needlessly pedantic and a legitimate source of public anger. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree separately emphasized that Canada has always recognized September 11 as a terrorist attack. That cross-party criticism weakened any attempt to frame the controversy solely as another Conservative campaign against CBC. On this particular question, prominent figures from both the government and opposition concluded that applying the longstanding attribution rule to 9/11 had produced an outcome that was difficult to defend publicly.

Canada’s Connection to September 11 Is Deeply Personal

The debate also carried particular weight in Canada because the country was not a distant observer of September 11. Twenty-four Canadians were among those killed. Canadian government commemorations have repeatedly named the attacks as terrorism while remembering the people who died in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Families were left with losses that did not become less immediate simply because the event moved farther into history. That human dimension explains why arguments over terminology can feel very different outside a newsroom than they do inside a style guide.

Canada’s role during the crisis also became one of the most remembered examples of cross-border solidarity. Transport Canada’s Operation Yellow Ribbon redirected 224 flights carrying more than 33,000 passengers to Canadian airports after U.S. airspace was closed. Communities from Vancouver to Atlantic Canada suddenly had to accommodate stranded travellers. Gander, Newfoundland, became the best-known example as residents housed and fed thousands of unexpected visitors. Twenty-five years later, that history makes September 11 part of Canada’s own national memory, not simply an American event covered from abroad.

The Fight Exposed the Tension Between Consistency and Common Understanding

CBC’s original policy had a defensible journalistic objective: establish a consistent rule so that reporters do not selectively call one politically motivated act terrorism while using less charged language for another. Neutral descriptions can be particularly valuable during breaking news, when information is incomplete and an incorrect attribution of motive could spread globally in minutes. UNESCO guidance on terrorism coverage similarly stresses careful terminology, verification and the need to avoid speculation when facts remain uncertain.

Yet consistency can create its own problems when a general rule is applied mechanically to an exceptional case. September 11 has been investigated by Congress, federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. Both American and Canadian governments have called it terrorism repeatedly for decades. The challenge for CBC was therefore not simply whether its policy had an intellectual rationale. It was whether preserving that rationale required language that ordinary audiences could reasonably interpret as hesitation about a historical fact. CBC’s reversal suggests management concluded that, in this case, strict consistency was undermining the clarity the rule was intended to protect.

The Broader Terrorism Policy Is Not Disappearing

The most important point about the reversal is what CBC did not change. The broadcaster has not announced that its journalists will routinely label every violent group, attack or politically motivated incident as terrorism without attribution. Boshra said CBC will continue its normal practice when new incidents occur, particularly where motives and responsibility require assessment by investigators, governments or experts. The 9/11 adjustment is therefore best understood as a historical exception rather than a new universal editorial standard.

That leaves CBC with a more nuanced policy but potentially a more complicated one. Editors will now need to determine when an event becomes sufficiently established that attribution is no longer necessary, or whether 9/11 will remain a uniquely defined exception. The episode also demonstrates the unusual scrutiny facing a publicly funded broadcaster: language designed for internal consistency can quickly become a political issue involving Parliament, foreign officials and grieving communities. Ahead of the 25th anniversary, CBC ultimately chose plain recognition of an established historical description over rigid adherence to a rule that had existed for decades.

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