The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is facing backlash after issuing a memo directing its reporters to avoid referring to the September 11, 2001, attacks as “terrorist attacks.”
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” the memo from CBC News senior director of journalistic standards and public trust Basem Boshra reads. “The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center (WTC in second reference) was destroyed.”
“If you have any more specific questions about the 9/11 anniversary coverage you are working on, please reach out to your editorial leader or the JSP office,” the memo adds.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, CBC Public Affairs Director Kerry Kelly said it is the company’s practice to “exercise extreme caution before using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism.'”
“The memo was a reminder of the longstanding practice that favours the use of these terms with attribution in our reporting,” Kelly told the outlet.
FBI Director criticized the memo, warning that the FBI would not support those adhering to the memo. “Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in US history will no longer have [a] friend in this FBI… Not to mention our heroes that responded in the aftermath,” he wrote on X.
While the CBC avoids labeling the terror attack as such, a Michigan museum affiliated with the Smithsonian depicts Arabs as victims in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn, Michigan, has an exhibit stating Arabs are victims of the attack. “The Arab American community suffered two-fold as a result of the tragic events of September 11th. As with all Americans, they suffered the horror and grief,” the display reads. “However, Arab Americans were unfairly held responsible, yet not a single Arab American was found guilty of any connection to September 11th.”
