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CBC's Fear of the T-Word

(Montreal Gazette) On Thursday night, Peter Mansbridge, the trusted anchor of CBC's The National, used the e-word - extremist - to describe those who seek to blow up buses packed with civilians in Jerusalem - individuals to whom most Canadians would apply another word: terrorist. CBC news writers, and presumably the executives to whom they report, believe that by calling a terrorist a terrorist, they would be choosing sides in the divisive conflict in the Middle East. Unfortunately for the CBC, the word terrorist is perfectly clear in its meaning. It refers to an individual who subjects civilian targets to unpredictable violence in order to achieve a political objective. To substitute "extremist," with its overtones of ideological fervor, for the much more specific "terrorist" is itself an expression of favoritism.
2004-01-29 00:00:00
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