| http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2002/04/30.html TWA 800: An Insider’s View By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid April 30, 2002 A new book details the experiences faced by several journalists who began looking into the destruction of TWA Flight 800, the airliner that blew up off the coast of Long Island in 1996, killing all 230 aboard. Titled Into the Buzzsaw, the book consists of accounts by journalists who challenged the official line and were either fired or came under considerable pressure. It was edited by Kristina Borjesson, a former CBS award winning producer and investigative reporter, who also wrote the title essay based on her own experience. Borjesson defines it this way: "The buzzsaw is what can rip through you when you try to expose anything this country’s large institutions — be they corporate or government — want kept under wraps. The system fights back with official lies, disinformation and stonewalling." Her remarkable story is about the TWA crash, the investigation that followed and the media coverage of the tragedy. A week after the crash, she was assigned to look into it. Bob Orr, who was assigned to the story for the CBS Evening News, told Borjesson that his sources were saying it was a mechanical failure, but she was hearing other things. CBS law enforcement analyst Paul Ragonese, a Brooklyn cop, told her he heard that the military was involved in something twelve miles out to sea. She wrote in her notes of what he said that there would be "finding absolutely of bomb or missile." This led to an unbelievable journey for a woman who could not imagine herself, a self-described "elitist," trying to take on "America’s Journalist establishment." But the evidence piled up that government officials were lying and covering up. James Sanders, a retired cop turned author and reporter, had come into possession of two strips of foam rubber from seatbacks on Flight 800 that contained a red residue that tests proved to be consistent with missile exhaust. The FBI insisted it was just glue. Sanders gave Borjesson one strip for CBS to do a second analysis. She turned it over to her bosses, who under pressure from the FBI surrendered it to them. Her story tracks the entire investigation. She explains how the evidence mounted. The debris field didn’t fit the government theory. Hundreds of eyewitnesses saw a streaking object collide with the plane. Radar data showed an object hit the plane. It also showed numerous vessels in or heading for an active military warning zone. She heard lie after lie from the government. She saw those lies parroted on CBS. Independent investigators were labeled conspiracy theorists. Hank Hughes, a veteran federal crash investigator, testified that the FBI had altered and tampered evidence and violated every normal investigative procedure. Borjesson was fired by CBS. The buzzsaw continued for her when she was asked to produce a segment on TWA 800 for an Oliver Stone show on ABC, but it too got spiked. This is a remarkable story by a disillusioned media insider whose eyes have been opened to the degree to which the media are willing to swallow government lies. |
