Journalists Told to Use Stunning New Term for 9/11 Terrorists

Canada’s public broadcaster told its journalists to avoid calling 9/11 a terrorist attack, and that choice speaks volumes.

Story Snapshot

CBC’s published guide urges “extreme caution” with “terrorist/terrorism” and prefers “the Sept. 11 attacks.”
Leaked-memo reports say staff were reminded not to call 9/11 a terrorist attack ahead of the 25th anniversary.
CBC defends attribution-only use to avoid appearing to take sides in conflicts.
Older CBC pages themselves used “terrorist attacks,” exposing a jarring inconsistency over time.

What CBC Told Its Journalists, In Plain English

CBC’s editor-in-chief published guidance that says reporters should “exercise extreme caution” when using the words “terrorist” and “terrorism.” The note says to generally avoid labeling any specific bombing or assault a “terrorist act” unless the term is directly attributed to a source. It also gives a preferred phrasing for 2001: call it “the Sept. 11 attacks,” not a terrorist attack. This is not rumor; CBC posted this policy in 2023 and framed it as longstanding.

CBC tells journalists not to call 9/11 ‘terrorist attacks’ in internal guidance https://t.co/Op9U1y1rbH #FoxNews

— Greg Shields (@GregShield83077) August 27, 2026

As coverage for the 25th anniversary neared, several outlets reported an internal reminder that reiterated this standard and told staff not to refer to 9/11 as a terrorist attack. The reports match the 2023 public guidance almost word-for-word. The broadcaster’s own political coverage also restated the rule: use the words if someone else says them in a clip or quote, but avoid them in the reporter’s voice to prevent perceived bias.

Why CBC Says It Avoids The Word

CBC argues the term can be politically loaded and inconsistent across cases. The guide warns the word itself can get in the way of facts and create “endless questions” about impartiality. The standard aims to keep the reporter’s voice neutral while letting sources state their views. CBC leaders have said this applies across the board, including to the September 11 attacks, and not only to recent wars or groups. That is their stated reason, and they have repeated it in public forums.

That explanation follows a style used by some global outlets, which ask for attribution with contested labels. The logic says: describe the act—who did what, to whom, how, and why—then let officials, witnesses, or experts apply terms like terrorism in quotes. In theory, this keeps the journalist out of political fights over definitions. In practice, it can also read as word-policing when the facts feel obvious to viewers.

The Problem: Consistency, Clarity, and Credibility

CBC itself once used terrorism language about 9/11. Archived CBC pages describe “the terrorist attacks that rocked the United States.” That earlier phrasing undercuts today’s strict caution. Viewers notice when labels change while facts do not. When a broadcaster accepts plain words in 2001, but steps around them in 2026, people ask a fair question: what changed—the event or the ideology of the newsroom? The credibility hit grows if the new language sounds like euphemism.

Common-sense intuition says words should match deeds. Hijacked planes flown into buildings to kill civilians for a political and religious cause meet the plain meaning of terrorism to most readers. CBC’s own definition says terrorism implies attacks against unarmed civilians for ideological reasons. That definition fits 9/11 on its face. The tighter the policy tries to be, the more this clash with everyday judgment stands out.

What Viewers Lose When News Sidesteps Plain Terms

Audiences rely on newsrooms to call things by their names. Precision is not bias; it is service. Avoidance can blur moral lines and drain urgency from events that deserve it. Words like terrorist carry weight because they describe an intent to terrorize civilians. When reporters dodge that, they risk sanding off the truth. That weakens trust and feeds the belief that elite media speak in code while the public must read between the lines. That is bad for democracy and worse for memory.

For 25 years we’ve been incorrectly identifying the men who killed UNARMED INNOCENT CIVILIANS on 9/11 according to the CBC.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

“The post included a portion of the language guide, which urges employees to “exercise extreme caution… https://t.co/kDcyZPGITk

— Maureen (@MaureenWRC) August 27, 2026

Conservative lawmakers and many viewers see this as backwards. They argue the neutral course is accurate language, not hedged syntax. They point to the public record, to the nature of the act, and to the harm in treating 9/11 like a semantic dispute. On the facts, their case aligns with common sense and the broadcaster’s own earlier wording. Attribution-only rules may help in gray zones. The mass murder of civilians on 9/11 is not a gray zone.