Kristina Borjesson Broke the Truth about TWA 800: Exiled from CBS and the Profession Because of It – RIP
OBITUARIES, 8 Jan 2024
Celia Farber | The Truth Barrier - TRANSCEND Media Service
It was just as in Orwell’s 1984, an Immediate Rewriting of History Occurred–U.S. Journalism Lost a Giant
“As a journalist you have to always remember that you are a public servant. If you back down, if you don’t try to find the truth, then you aren’t doing your job. It’s a huge responsibility.”
—Kristina Borjesson
30 Dec 2023 – “On the afternoon of July 17, 1996, broadcast journalist Kristina Borjesson left work early after wrapping up a documentary on Fidel Castro for CBS. Her husband was at JFK International Airport, putting their 11-year-old son on a plane to visit relatives in France, and an exhausted Borjesson climbed into bed for a nap.
“All of a sudden the phone rang,” she says, “and I heard my neighbor’s voice say, ‘Was that your son’s plane that just went down?’” A Paris-bound Boeing 747 had exploded off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., just after 8:30 p.m., killing all 230 on board. “I can’t even describe to you that feeling,” says Borjesson (COM’80). “It was like hot oil was poured on my brain. I started dry-heaving.”
But her son was safe; his Air France flight was five minutes behind the doomed aircraft, TWA Flight 800. “For that moment, I knew what the family members of those victims were going through,” she says. “I lived it.”
The tragedy would remain part of Borjesson’s life for the next 17 years, the subject of her own on-again, off-again investigation. Her documentary, TWA Flight 800, which she wrote, directed, and produced, premiered on the EPIX cable TV channel last July. It is the first film, she says, to focus entirely on the forensic evidence, and it disputes the conclusions of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which spent four years investigating the accident.”
”As she tracked down the cause of the explosion, what had happened became very clear: The physical evidence as well as hundreds of eyewitness accounts indicated that the plane had been struck by a missile. Members of several U.S. government agencies, Borjesson decided, orchestrated a cover-up while unquestioning journalists reported as fact the untenable official claims that a mechanical failure in Flight 800’s center wing fuel tank had caused the crash. The evidence of what she identifies as “high level, multi-agency collusion” led her to a startling revelation: “It was just as in Orwell’s 1984, an immediate rewriting of history occurred. I realized how terrifyingly easy it is to do.”
Powerful forces including the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), as well as other journalists aligned themselves against Borjesson. Despite this, she has spent the better part of two decades digging for the truth about TWA Flight 800 and speaking out against corruption in journalism.”
I got a text last last night from Kristina’s phone number;
It was her husband Frederic, writing to tell me she had passed away, yesterday, at 12:30 am.
“Her cancer spread to her bones and lungs,” he wrote. “She’d been in horrible pain now since October.”
I stared at the message and the room started to turn, as I felt certain I was about to read a text message from Kristina.
Sometimes your heart really breaks for another person, and my heart was aching, for Frederic, and for their two adult children, Christopher and Isabelle. Kristina was the center of the family. She would do anything for her family.
She had fought and fended off this cancer for years, and recently, it had come back with a vengeance.
I lived with Kristina and Frederic for 2 weeks this fall, along with Lewis, my cat, and Kristina was working on the Dr. James Thorp book with me. They are both extremely hospitable.
It was like old times.
I did not know how sick she had become but I should have known. She had more or less told me, the last time I saw her, sitting on the edge of her bed, the night before she went in for surgery. She told me she was not going to endlessly stay around and fight and fight, through too much pain. I was too afraid to ask what she meant, so I disassociated. I think it meant she knew. And she was one of the most stoic people I ever knew—she did not feel sorry for herself, ever. A heart of gold, a tough exterior.
An incredible journalist, author, whistleblower, and truth-seeker. She did more work on 9/11 truth than I could ever do justice describing. I trust that community will do its part in acknowledging her contributions.
But it was TWA 800 that was Kristina’s singular story, the one that sealed her complex fate, as well as her historic stature. When we were in her basement, working, or hanging laundry, you’d never sense any of this “historic stature,” but that’s how it is. Nobody sees the story in the basement. What a privilege it was, after all.
Frederic, her husband, would come downstairs and ask what we wanted for lunch, and stroke her hair so tenderly. There was still so much good. She seemed healthy. In fact, she left me behind when we went to the ocean for her morning run, my morning walk.
Extraordinary article about Kristina and TWA 800.
Portrait of Kristina at Americans Who Tell The Truth (Thank you, Doug)
Important piece, “TWA Flight 800 and 9/11.” Veterans Today Archives.
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Tags: Investigative Journalism, Media, Obituary, USA
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