Canada’s broadcaster condemned for telling reporters 9/11 wasn’t a ‘terrorist attack’

A leading Canadian Jewish group and a prominent researcher of antisemitic propaganda criticize the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for telling reporters to not refer to the September 11, 2001, attacks as terrorism.

The CBC is Canada’s national public broadcaster.

Warren Kinsella, a political consultant who recently published a book on online antisemitic propaganda, reports obtaining a memo from the CBC to its staff.

“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks. The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes,” the memo says.

The story is in @TheTorontoSun. https://t.co/y2Bw7XpNyh pic.twitter.com/9bG2hgkNcK

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) August 27, 2026

Kinsella, writing in The Toronto Sun, compares the directive to other news organizations that refer to terrorist groups as “activists,” “attackers,” “fighters,” or “militants.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, representing Jewish federations in Canada, links the instruction to the CBC refusing to label Hamas a terrorist group. Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in Canada.

“Sanitizing the most infamous acts of terror in modern history as mere ‘hijackings that led to crashes’ is a complete collapse of journalistic standards,” the center says.

A CBC spokesperson tells Kinsella: “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.”