A Townhall reader, a Canadian, reached out to let me know about a CBC memo in which staff were instructed not to refer to the 9/11 attacks as terrorism. It was radical Islamic terrorism and the deadliest terror attack in history. Next month will be the 25th anniversary of the attacks. With a New York City mayor who walks a waffling line on radical Islam and antisemitism. Oh, how we have fallen.
Yesterday we reminded Canadians that @CBCNews refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization. Today, reports of a leaked memo reveals they are now instructing staff not to call 9/11 a "terrorist attack."
— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) August 26, 2026
Sanitizing the most infamous acts of terror in modern history as mere… pic.twitter.com/xihbUdKtqF
This memo was spoken about in an op-ed for the Toronto Sun by Warren Kinsella:
This week, I received a memo — presumably confidential — addressed to CBC News staff. It is authored by one Basem Boshra, who is the “Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News.” In Boshra’s memo, reporters are editors are told this:
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”
Boshra states that all in bold letters, italicized, as if to emphasize the point. To make clear it is a directive, not a suggestion.
It goes on. “The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes,” it reads, again in italics. There is no recognition in the CBC memo — none — that “hijacking that leads to passenger jet crashes” is not a protest, or a vote. It is a terrorist act, full stop.
I have never been among those who hate CBC. I still occasionally listen to CBC radio, and I admire some of the veteran journalists there — I send them notes, telling them so. I thought the Conservative Party’s pledge to eliminate the CBC was stupid. In remote parts of a vast country, we need a broadcaster that fairly and accurately represents the news.
Except this direction from CBC management is not that. It is not fair and it is in no way accurate. It is rewriting the historical record. It is manipulating facts to fit an ideological perspective. It is cruel and despicable. It is Orwellian.
I contacted a couple of CBC’s designated spokespeople to ask them why CBC has decided that terrorism is no longer terrorism. To ask them why “hijackings [that] led to passenger jet crashes” is not considered terrorism. I thought about asking them, too, if “murder” is considered involuntary cessation of biological functions at CBC. But I didn’t, because that might offend their sensibilities.
Kerry Kelly, the poor woman assigned to defend the insensible, said she’d get back to me. She did. Here is what she said: “CBC’s longstanding language guidance regarding the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ is a preference for the use of these words with attribution, a practice shared by many of the world’s top journalistic organizations. Our general manager and editor in chief has written publicly in the past on the subject.”
On this, Kerry Kelly is actually right. In my new book The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda, I describe how too many news organizations do not use the word terrorism to describe terrorism. Other news organizations have called terrorists “activists” (BBC), “attackers” (CNN), “fighters” (New York Times), and “militants” (Time).
Yes, if we’re going by Orwellian/Oceanian lexicon here, it's double-plus good in the halls of the CBC. Kinsella knows that the 9/11 attacks were an act of terrorism. The hijackers were terrorists. This isn’t hard.
It shows how insane the Left will go to push their agenda: the 9/11 attacks weren’t terrorism.
It’s an insult and an outrage.
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