Aug 28, 8:01 AM
The Language of Avoidance at Canada's State Broadcaster
CBC instructs reporters to scrub the word terrorism from 9/11 coverage while drawing over 1.5 billion in public funding.
Public money buys strange things these days, but in Canada, it appears to purchase linguistic gymnastics of the highest order. State-funded broadcasters have long harboured a penchant for semantic acrobatics, yet the latest internal guidance from Ottawa's flagship media institution elevates the craft to an art form.
Just weeks ahead of the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation issued explicit instructions to its newsroom staff. Journalists were told unequivocally not to refer to the events of that day as terrorist attacks. Instead, the mandated alternative phrasing reduces one of the defining atrocities of modern history to a sequence of mechanical misfortunes: the hijackings led to passenger jet crashes.
The internal directive was drafted by Basem Boshra, the senior director overseeing journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News. First revealed by columnist Warren Kinsella and later detailed by the National Post, the memo lays out the state broadcaster’s strict verbal boundaries.
Faced with scrutiny, CBC defended its stance. A network spokesperson informed the National Post that interpreting the policy as a denial of the terrorist nature of 9/11 was wholly inaccurate. The broadcaster maintained that the instruction reflects a long-standing editorial rule: terms such as terrorist or terrorism are strictly reserved for attribution to external sources rather than direct adoption by CBC reporters.
It is a remarkably clinical approach to journalism, though tax-paying citizens might wonder about the utility of an institution that requires third-party permission to identify obvious reality.
This linguistic delicacy is underwritten by substantial public resources. CBC/Radio-Canada relies heavily on state funding, receiving an approved budget of approximately 1.58 billion Canadian dollars for the 2025/26 fiscal year, a figure boosted by a recent top-up of 150 million dollars. Bureaucratic media enterprises may convince themselves that sterilizing language preserves institutional purity, but to the public funding the bill, it looks like administrative detachment from reality.
Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com
