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Opinion: CBC's refusal to distinguish between terrorism and war shows it can't think critically

The problem with refusing to reason through the awfulness of civilian deaths is that it can lead to a spurious moral equivalence

When the CBC recently backed away from an internal policy that instructed its journalists not to label 9/11 as a terrorist attack, it was a sensible reversal. But it occurred only after the broadcaster first dug in its taxpayer-financed heels.

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The entire episode is worth exploring because the back-and-forth over the CBC memo spurred debates over the nature of terrorism, and the broadcaster’s failure to think about the reality of what the word actually means.

Opinion: CBC's refusal to distinguish between terrorism and war shows it can't think critically Back to video

It was lawyer and columnist Warren Kinsella who broke the news last week that CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards and public trust, Basem Boshra, recently sent a memo to staff about the upcoming 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

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Boshra instructed CBC staff in the following manner: “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.” Note the imperative: do not!

The reason for these specific instructions about 9/11, as later noted by........

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