KRISTINA BORJESSON BIOGRAPHY

 

An award-winning print and broadcast journalist for more than twenty years, Kristina Borjesson is noted for taking unusual, exceptionally incisive approaches to the subjects she examines. Her second book, Feet to the Fire:  The Media After 9/11: Top Journalists Speak Out was released in October 2005 (Prometheus Books).  In a series of candid conversations with Borjesson, a who’s who of leading journalists (national security and intelligence reporters, war correspondents, etc.) and news executives examine their post 9/11 performances and their interactions with U.S. government leaders and institutions.

In broadcasting, Borjesson most recently line-produced a documentary about the American press titled USA Media Blues for the French network, ARTE.

The revised and expanded paperback edition of Borjesson’s last book, Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press  (Prometheus Books) was released in October 2004 and won the 2005 Independent Publishers Book Award for Best Book in the Current Events category.  The hardback edition of BUZZSAW was awarded the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism and was selected by the New York Public Library’s Books to Remember Committee as one of the twenty-five most extraordinary titles of 2002.  A bestseller overseas, BUZZSAW garnered critical acclaim in Europe and Canada.  In Quebec, Elle magazine selected Borjesson as their Woman of the Year in Journalism. Borjesson speaks internationally about issues surrounding American society, investigative reporting, and the press. 

Prior to publishing books, Borjesson was well established in television, producing lead segments for CNN’s NewsStand show, including investigative programs on the unethical business practices of Hollywood’s talent agents and managers.  Before that, she produced for CBS network’s CBS Reports documentary unit, where she won an Emmy and a Murrow award for her investigative reporting on the hour, CBS Reports: Legacy of Shame (an update of Edward R. Murrow’s signature piece, Harvest of Shame).  The following year, she was Emmy-nominated for CBS Reports: The Last Revolutionary, a film biography of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Borjesson also contributed in-depth, original reporting on the TWA 800 crash to CBS’s Evening News and developed stories for 60 Minutes. For PBS’s Frontline, she field produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, Showdown in Haiti. She also produced Living with Crocodiles for National Geographic Explorer while developing, acquiring and distributing programming for the National Geographic Society’s Television Division. As Series Co-Producer for On Television, a 13-part series for PBS examining television’s role in American society, Borjesson re-edited the hour, On Television: Public Trust or Private Property? and developed another hour, On Television: Teach the Children. Prior to that, Borjesson was Director of Research and Production Manager for the award winning PBS film biography, Thomas Merton, about the Trappist monk and renowned social critic.  Borjesson was an elected class representative and elected member of the Research Committee at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she earned her master’s degree. She received her bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) from Boston University’s School of Public Communication.  Borjesson was reared in Haiti and speaks fluent French, Spanish and Creole.