CanWest Accused of Misusing “Terrorist” Label

[Just came across this -- it's dated, but deserves to be repeated. -D.O.M.]

by the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom
September 17, 2004

One of the world’s leading news agencies is accusing Canada’s largest newspaper chain of altering words and phrases in its stories covering the conflicts in the Middle East.

Reuters says that CanWest Global, owner of the National Post and dozens of other newspapers across Canada, has been routinely an inappropriately inserting the word “terrorist” into newswire copy, thereby changing the meaning of those stories.

The global managing editor for Reuters, David Schlesinger, told the CBC that such changes are unacceptable and that CanWest had crossed the line from editing for style to slanting the news from the Middle East.

“If they want to put their own judgment into it, they’re free to do that, but then they shouldn’t say that it’s by a Reuters reporter,” Schlesinger was quoted as saying.

Schlesinger cited a recent Reuters story, in which the original copy read: “…the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.”

In the National Post version of the story, it became: “…the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.”

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