A Lesson in Verification

In a February 13, 2007 article on the New York Times website [1], Sewell Chan and Al Baker recount the story of New York City police officer Cesar A. Borja, who did of lung disease in January 2007.

Borja had become a symbol of the medical crisis affecting the thousands of emergency personnel and construction workers who labored on the remains of the World Trade Center after 9/11. New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote to President Bush seeking more federal money to care for workers, citing Borja as a prime example of a volunteer whose tireless efforts at the WTC site led to his illness.

Borja's son, Ceasar, was flown to Bush's most recent State of the Union address and later had an audience with the President.

Chan and Baker write that the attention placed on Borja was based on reports by the New York Daily News and The Filipino Reporter that contained inaccuracies about when Borja reported to the WTC site, how much time he spent there, and his role there. Other newspapers repeated the account of Borja's work on the WTC rubble without attributing it to anyone.

While not taking anything away from the sacrifices Borja and other workers made at the WTC site, the article examines how failures by the Daily News, the Reporter, and other news organizations to adequately verify the information they reported exaggerated Borja's role and perpetuated a mythical narrative about his work that neither his own accounts, nor those of his family, support.

Click here to read Chan and Baker's article in its entirety on the New York Times website. [2]