Recharger The Dog » Cesar A. Borja http://www.rechargerthedog.com Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:41:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 The reason, after so many crappy years, we still love the Times http://www.rechargerthedog.com/2007/02/13/the-reason-after-so-many-crappy-years-we-still-love-the-times/ http://www.rechargerthedog.com/2007/02/13/the-reason-after-so-many-crappy-years-we-still-love-the-times/#comments Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:05:56 +0000 Recharger http://rechargerthedog.com/?p=385 Borja.jpgIn John Ford’s great film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, someone says, “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So it goes with the death of Cesar A. Borja, the New York City policer office who, claimed the dailies, rushed to Ground Zero right after September 11th, pulling 16 hour volunteer shifts in the toxic fires, heroism that eventually led to his death this January 23rd from pulmonary fibrosis. The Daily News and the Post carried [...]]]> Borja.jpgIn John Ford’s great film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, someone says, “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So it goes with the death of Cesar A. Borja, the New York City policer office who, claimed the dailies, rushed to Ground Zero right after September 11th, pulling 16 hour volunteer shifts in the toxic fires, heroism that eventually led to his death this January 23rd from pulmonary fibrosis. The Daily News and the Post carried the story for days, following Borja’s son Cesar Jr. as he appeared at the State of the Union Address, as he met with Hillary Clinton and President Bush, as he cried. Now a team of New York Times reporters, asking the hard questions none of the dailies would, reports that Borja Sr. first appeared near Ground Zero on December 24, 2001, several days after the fires were out, and that he worked a few blocks away, directing traffic. And he didn’t volunteer. And, most importantly, he smoked a pack a day for years.

This sucks. Not because the Daily News and the Post are acting like the Daily News and the Post, but because when we worked at the Village Voice, fact checkers held our feet to the flames till we provided a valid source for every single syllable we wrote. Dang, we couldn’t make anything up.

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