Ok I’ll bite – why not?
CBC tells staff not to call 9/11 a ‘terrorist attack’
Seriously: why not? What else would you call it? What has ever been more of a terrorist attack? I don’t mean because the most violent ever or the one with the most casualties ever, because obviously not, but the one most intended to send a message? The one most like a lavish tv extravaganza bit of advertising of a threat? Come on – nothing comes close to the telegenic drama of those planes exploding into those conspicuous office towers.
Is the claim that terror was not the goal? Please.
What reason is there to refrain from calling a screamingly obvious terror-show a terror-show? Is it “offensive” to call it that? If so, to whom?
Is it because…[whispers] Islam?
I suppose. Islam is persecuted, you see, because too many people have noticed how horrible it is.
With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on the horizon, the CBC has circulated a memo to reporters and editors across all its news platforms reminding them not to refer to the attacks that claimed 3,000 lives and changed the modern world as “terrorist attacks.”
The missive from the broadcaster’s journalistic standards and practices office, a copy of which was obtained by National Post, includes a section of the “longstanding language guidance” on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks carried out by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda.
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” it reads about halfway through, with the first part bolded and the last two words linking back to the CBC’s internal language guide.
It’s longstanding, is it? Even though the attacks in question were in fact terrorist attacks?
“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Manhattan. The World Trade Center (WTC in second reference) was destroyed.”
No no no no no. That’s dishonest reporting. They weren’t mere simple hijackings, i.e. taking control of planes to redirect them to a different destination. The taking of the planes didn’t “lead to” the crashes as if the crashes were accidents; the planes were intended to be flown into large conspicuous and/or powerful buildings to make a political/religious point. That’s what they were hijacked for. Journalism, including state journalism, has no business lying about this.
The letter was first reported by the Toronto Sun. It is signed BB, who is identified by the Sun as Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News.
Um.
The question is obvious. Is he, er, biased at all? Is he, in short, an Islamist, or if not an Islamist, a Muslim?
To the surprise of no one, it’s been made difficult to find out. None of the respectable news outlets mention the subject – because of course they don’t; that’s what makes them respectable. Front Page declares he is, but Front Page is not respectable, and anyway it doesn’t tell us how it knows, so since I haven’t been able to find out, I suspect it hasn’t either.
Anyway. Whether he’s an Islamist or a Muslim or a Catholic or an atheist, it’s ridiculous that he’s ordered CBC journalists not to call a highly conspicuous act of terrorism an act of terrorism. It’s also ridiculous that they have obeyed, that no one more senior has withdrawn his order, that anybody anywhere thinks this is how to do the news.
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