That’s part of the job

There are some moments in life so ingrained in your memory that decades later you can still tell someone exactly where you were and what you were doing.

Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those moments for me.

Keiran was two years old and eating his breakfast when my mom called and asked me if I had the TV on.

I didn’t.

I turned it on and, almost at that exact moment, watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

I remember staring at the television, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Like millions of people around the world, I knew the world had just changed.

Twenty-five years later, I can still picture that morning.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I find CBC’s recent controversy over what to call 9/11 so difficult to stomach.

I buy my ink by the barrel, so I understand that words matter. One word can change the tone of a story. One adjective can turn a factual sentence into an opinion.

But sometimes, in the pursuit of appearing unbiased, journalism can tie itself into such an intellectual knot that it forgets its most basic responsibility: tell people the truth, clearly.

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, CBC journalists were reminded of the public broadcaster’s longstanding language guidance surrounding the words “terrorist” and “terrorism.”

The internal instruction was remarkably straightforward: “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks.”

Think about that for a minute.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed after al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes. Two were flown into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back.

Yet 25 years later, CBC’s editorial policy meant its journalists could not simply call those attacks terrorism without attribution.

Then came the backlash, and CBC changed its guidance.

Basem Boshra, CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards and public trust, said the previous approach had unintentionally become an “impediment to clarity and public understanding.”

Isn’t clarity and public understanding exactly what journalism is supposed to provide?

To be fair, CBC never said 9/11 wasn’t terrorism. Its policy was based on the idea that journalists should attribute politically and emotionally charged labels rather than independently apply them.

I understand the principle. I just don’t understand the result.

If an explosion happened tomorrow and nobody knew who was responsible or why, I wouldn’t immediately call it terrorism. I would report what police knew, attribute allegations and wait for the facts.

That’s responsible journalism.

But 9/11 isn’t an unfolding news story. It happened 25 years ago.

The Government of Canada has repeatedly called 9/11 a terrorist attack. Liberal prime minister Paul Martin referred to the “terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.” Conservative governments have also used the terminology, and Parliament responded to 9/11 by passing the Anti-terrorism Act.

There comes a point when refusing to call something what it demonstrably was doesn’t make journalism more neutral. It makes journalism less clear.

And that brings me to the bigger issue: bias.

Bias isn’t always a lie.

A newspaper can print nothing but technically accurate sentences and still give readers a distorted picture.

Bias can be found in the stories we cover and the ones we ignore. It can be found in who gets interviewed, whose perspective is treated sympathetically and which facts are emphasized.

It can be found in language, and sometimes even in the words we refuse to use.

Every journalist has biases. Every editor does too. Our job isn’t to pretend they don’t exist. Our job is to recognize them and make damn sure they don’t prevent us from doing our jobs.

There is another argument about CBC that I hear constantly.

CBC receives federal funding.

So does this newspaper.

The Pass Herald receives federal funding through programs designed to support Canadian journalism. I don’t hide that from my readers.

Government funding doesn’t automatically purchase editorial loyalty. If I made that argument about CBC, I would have to accept the same argument when someone made it about me.

I don’t.

Instead, judge me by what I print.

Anyone who regularly reads this column knows I have strong opinions about coal. I don’t hide my position.

But my opinion and this newspaper’s news coverage are two different things.

Earlier this year, I counted the Herald’s news stories dealing directly with coal development and Grassy Mountain.

There were 14.

Three were primarily pro-coal. Two were primarily anti-coal. Seven included mixed perspectives and two were largely neutral.

I deliberately excluded my editorials and opinion pieces because editorials are opinion. News reporting isn’t supposed to be.

I’ve also published stories and submissions written about me, including pieces I might not particularly enjoy seeing in my own newspaper. The pages don’t belong exclusively to my point of view simply because my name is on the masthead.

Does that mean I don’t have biases? Absolutely not.

I do.

The question is whether I recognize them and whether I allow them to determine what readers get to know.

That’s the standard I expect readers to apply to me.

Don’t decide I’m unbiased because I tell you I am. Don’t decide I’m biased simply because you disagree with one of my editorials.

Look at the work. Look at who we interview. Look at whether people I disagree with are allowed to make their case. Look at whether uncomfortable information still makes it into the newspaper.

Then decide.

CBC deserves the same standard.

And when I apply it to CBC, I have concerns.

Not because Ottawa sends them money.

Because of editorial decisions like this one.

There is also something slightly ironic about working this hard to prove you’re unbiased.

Sometimes, when you try this hard to prove you’re unbiased, I wonder if deep down you know there might be a reason people think you are.

Ask Pierre Poilievre how he feels about CBC.

He certainly hasn’t been subtle.

That doesn’t mean his criticism automatically makes CBC biased. It doesn’t. But neither does CBC declaring itself impartial automatically make it so.

The work has to prove it.

When a newsroom becomes so worried about appearing biased that stating an overwhelmingly established fact becomes problematic, I think we’ve lost the plot.

And because CBC is Canada’s national public broadcaster, the responsibility is even greater.

It isn’t enough for CBC to tell Canadians its journalism is impartial. Canadians have to be able to see it in how stories are selected, framed and reported.

Those choices matter at CBC and they matter here at the Pass Herald.

If you think I’m biased, write me a letter. Challenge me. Stop buying my newspaper. Tell me I’m full of it when you see me at the grocery store.

And believe me, people do.

That’s part of the job.

To CBC’s credit, it ultimately changed its guidance on 9/11.

But I can’t quite get past the fact that it required a controversy to get there.

Twenty-five years after terrorists hijacked airplanes and flew them into buildings full of innocent people, Canada’s national public broadcaster needed to change its editorial guidance so its journalists could plainly call 9/11 terrorism without attribution.

Journalism desperately needs public trust right now.

We aren’t going to rebuild that trust by becoming so frightened of appearing biased that we become afraid to call something what it is.

Sometimes a terrorist attack is a terrorist attack.

And saying so isn’t bias.

It’s journalism.