Shortly after news broke of a deadly January 27 attack by Islamic terrorists on a hotel in Libya’s capital, Al Jazeera English executive Carlos van Meek shot out an email to his employees.

“All: We manage our words carefully around here,” the network’s head of output wrote to staff at the Doha-based news channel’s New York and Washington, D.C. newsrooms. “So I’d like to bring to your attention some key words that have a tendency of tripping us up.”

In an email obtained by National Review Online, van Meek warned the network’s journalists against the use of terms including “terrorist,” “militant,” “Islamist” and “jihad.” …

Instead of “terrorists,” van Meek told his employees to use the terms “fighters” and “militants” — but only in certain contexts. “For example, we can use the term [militant] to describe Norwegian mass-killer Andres Behring Breivik or Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh,” he wrote. In a 2013 seminar held at Northwestern University in Qatar, van Meek was described not only as “head of Al Jazeera English,” but also as the person charged with “establishing Al Jazeera in America.”

SEE COMPLETE TEXT

  ‘Islamist’, ‘jihad’, Al Jazeera to U.S. newsrooms: Avoid the words ‘terrorist’