Canadian Broadcasting Instructs Staff Not to Refer to the 9/11 Attacks As 'Terrorism'
The Canadian left went woke while the American left was still pulling up its britches. Ever since rock-star politician Pierre Trudeau appeared on the scene in the late 1960s, Canada has been hopelessly, wildly, self-consciously hard-left-wingHe made Canada a bilingual nation in 1969 and declared a policy of "multiculturalism" in 1971. He decriminalized homosexuality in 1967, long before American leftists made gays a kind of mascot for their agenda.
Like JFK in the U.S., Pierre Trudeau attracted a lot of female worship: "Trudeaumania," they called it. Politics as entertainment wasn't born in Canada, but the radical left saw Trudeau's mass appeal as a means to an end.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) Basem Boshra, who is the Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News, sent out a memo recently, instructing its news staff how to report on the upcoming 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
“Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks," Mr. Boshra wrote, "all in bold letters, italicized, as if to emphasize the point," according to Warren Kinsella of the Toronto Star, who saw the memo.
“The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes,” it reads, again in italics.
Kinsella was dumbstruck.
I have never been among those who hate CBC. I still occasionally listen to CBC radio, and I admire some of the veteran journalists there — I send them notes, telling them so. I thought the Conservative Party’s pledge to eliminate the CBC was stupid. In remote parts of a vast country, we need a broadcaster that fairly and accurately represents the news.
Except this direction from CBC management is not that. It is not fair and it is in no way accurate. It is rewriting the historical record. It is manipulating facts to fit an ideological perspective. It is cruel and despicable. It is Orwellian.
"I contacted a couple of CBC’s designated spokespeople to ask them why CBC has decided that terrorism is no longer terrorism." Kinsella writes. "To ask them why 'hijackings [that] led to passenger jet crashes' is not considered terrorism."
The response that Kinsella got from CBC brass was just as Orwellian, or as Townhall's Matt Vespacharacterizes it, "Yes, if we’re going by Orwellian/Oceanian lexicon here, it's double-plus good in the halls of the CBC."
Kerry Kelly, the poor woman assigned to defend the insensible, said she’d get back to me. She did. Here is what she said: “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.”
On this, Kerry Kelly is actually right. In my new book The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda, I describe how too many news organizations do not use the word terrorism to describe terrorism. Other news organizations have called terrorists “activists” (BBC), “attackers” (CNN), “fighters” (New York Times), and “militants” (Time).
Kinsella points out that even the "government of Saudi Arabia — where the majority of the 9/11 killers came from — officially calls what happened on that day 'terrorism.'"
This embarrassing wordplay is done so as not to rile up the rubes and get them in an Islamophobic mood. It brings to mind that classic Darryl Worley song about 9/11, "Have You Forgotten."
They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger, that's what the experts say
If it was up to me, I'd show it every day
In addition to not getting Americans in a mood to do some Muslim-bashing, not referring to terrorism as terrorism protects the delicate sensibilities of, well, terrorists. It turns all Muslims, including violent jihadists, into victims when we conveniently leave out the plain-language definition of what happened in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. All Muslims become a put-upon minority who are "unfairly" lumped in with violent jihadists.
Fair or unfair — phooey. Call it what it is, CBC. You're only making your organization look idiotic.
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