For two months, Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — the federal body that oversees it — vigorously defended the policy, with editors in at least one case changing an Israeli journalist’s report on the terrorist attacks to remove the word “terrorists” when referring to Hamas.

VOA’s leadership now admits that this was a mistake, with its acting director John Lippman explaining the change in a memo to staff this morning.

“Correcting guidance that was issued October 10, 2023, and reissued on October 20, 2023, there is NO prohibition in our Best Practices Guide against our labeling the people and organizations that commit acts of terror as ‘terrorists’ or against using the word ‘terrorism’ in our stories without attribution,” he wrote.

“Terrorists use violence against civilians to advance their political or ideological agenda,” Lippman added. “By definition, therefore, the taking of civilians as hostages and the targeted killing of civilians, as occurred in Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, are ‘acts of terrorism’ and the people who commit those acts are, by definition, ‘terrorists.’”

[File this under Things We All Learned Decades Ago. VOA hit reverse when Congress started demanding answers as to the VOA’s moral-relativist policies in regard to America’s enemies. Don’t expect other media outlets to rethink that, though. — Ed]