Some Major Newsrooms Tell Reporters: Don’t Say “Terrorism”

Last week, a leaked staff memo from the director of journalistic standards and public trust at Canada’s largest broadcaster drew wide attention for instructing reporters, “Do not refer to militants, soldiers, or anyone else as ‘terrorists.’”

“Terrorism remains heavily politicized” and is too subjective and slanted a word for reporters to use outside of attributed quotes and narrow exceptions, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cautioned. It told reporters to “use fact-based language” instead—and said calling Hamas, or anyone, a terrorist group is “opinion, not fact.”

The don’t-say-terrorist directive was distributed just...