The network ombudsman has recognized that CBC News choice not to label the killing and kidnapping of Jews as terrorism is an area with "room for improvement."According to Blacklock’s Reporter, CBC managers defended their editorial policy, explaining that it was an effort to maintain impartiality in their coverage of the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.“If CBC were to describe events of that day as an act of terrorism, it would be an accurate description,” wrote Ombudsman Jack Nagler.The CBC Ombudsman received 307 viewer complaints after CBC journalists did not call Hamas attackers “terrorists” but instead referred to them as “militants.”Complainants accused the CBC of “whitewashing” murders of Jews in a manner that “reduces clarity in favour of political correctness.” Describing Hamas killers as militants “trivializes their true nature and intent,” wrote viewers. The sanitized language “demeans the seriousness and barbarity” of the October 7 attacks and reflected a “lack of moral courage” by the CBC, said viewers’ mail.In Canada since 2002, Hamas, also known as Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiya, has been blacklisted as a terrorist organization.CBC management, in a leaked October 11 memo, directed reporters to “not refer to militants, soldiers or anyone else as ‘terrorists’” since “the notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized.”“To this day, there remains no universally accepted definition of terrorism,” wrote Ombudsman Nagler. “That makes it very difficult to make a determination about CBC’s use or non-use of the term.”Nagler noted the Criminal Code section 83.01 defines terrorism as violent lawlessness “for a political, religious or ideological purpose” with the “intention of intimidating the public.” In a 2011 directive, the CBC Ombudsman said the network had no actual ban on the word and that reporters were expected to “use common sense.”“In choosing to avoid that term CBC made its own job of describing the nature of what happened October 7 more difficult,” wrote Nagler. “That was executed well in some instances but not all. There was no breach of Journalistic Standards And Practices, but there is room for improvement.”The Ombudsman singled out for criticism one CBC Radio World Report broadcast that described the October 7 killings as a “surprise attack by Hamas militants” in which both sides saw casualties as “Israeli airstrikes pounded the Gaza Strip.” Wrote Nagler “There is nothing untrue about what is reported here. However, the language throughout is antiseptic as though this had been a normal clash between two rival military forces.”MPs expressed disgust with the deliberately mild language used to describe Hamas killers. “It amounts to censorship,” Bloc MP Martin Champoux (Drummond, QC) earlier told the Commons. “Hamas’ heinous attacks are terrorism. Journalists know this.”During an October 17 hearing of the Commons Heritage committee, Conservative MP Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, AB) raised questions about CBC's stance of not taking sides.“Of course, you’re taking a side,” said Thomas. “You’re taking a side against terrorists. What other side would you want to take when you have 1,400 people who were massacred in an evening, when you have women and girls who are raped and then murdered and then paraded through the city when you have 40 babies who are beheaded? Whose side are you on?”
