 |
Mark Fainaru-Wada (Courtesy San Francisco Chronicle |
Mark Fainaru-Wada is a sports reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle's enterprise team. He has written about the expanding influence of sports agents, the litigious owner of the Golden State Warriors, and the obsessive and eccentric world of bingo. He currently is covering the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) and allegations of steroid use among elite athletes, including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.
Susan Q. Stranahan: How did you get on to the BALCO story?
Mark Fainaru-Wada: There was a federal raid [in September 2003] on BALCO and the home of Barry Bonds' trainer. We decided to try to figure out what was going on, and why the raids. We started to go to school about BALCO, Victor Conte [the company's founder] and Greg Anderson [Bonds' personal strength trainer]. At some point, the paper got a tip with detailed information that steroids were involved, that leading athletes were involved and the name of Bonds. Our interest ratcheted up at that point.
As we are building up to write our first significant story, we discovered there were two grand jury investigations [involving BALCO] underway. We were the first to report that, and the story just broke open. We then found out that Bonds had been subpoenaed and it was the next big story we broke. Then we wrote about what they found in the raids.
Going in, we were completely blind. No one had heard of BALCO. It was a matter of chasing as much as you could.
SQS: Did you have the sense that this was going to be a big story?
MF-W: It had the potential to be huge if it panned out as it appeared -- steroids, Barry Bonds, elite athletes. You just didn't know how far it would go. We kept finding the names of more athletes. They were traipsing into the courthouse in San Francisco in public view to testify before the grand jury.
SQS: On December 3, you and Lance Williams reported on the [2003] grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. On December 12, Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein wrote a column supporting the paper's decision to run that story, saying he believed the public's right to know the extent of illegal drug use in sports outweighed the confidentiality rules covering grand jury proceedings. Describe the discussions inside the paper to run the story, as well as reader response.
MF-W: We got a lot of emails, and a decent amount of them accused us of corrupting the judicial system. Lance and I both said it would be good if someone responded to those who were attacking us and [wrote about] the reason the paper thought it important that the information be made public. I don't know that anybody thought Phil would be the guy to do it, but Lance and I were totally grateful that he did.
SQS: Given the current legal climate, in which reporters are being threatened with jail for refusing to reveal their sources, are you concerned you might face sanctions for obtaining and printing the grand jury testimony?
MF-W: That never impacted whether we were going to run the stories. I'd be lying, however, if I said Lance and I never talked about it or worried about it. The last thing I want is a subpoena. We've received requests from the U.S. Attorney's office asking for our sources. They asked us not to publish the testimony, to return the transcripts and to identify who the sources were. The judge has also made a formal request to the Department of Justice to investigate the leak. We are prepared to protect our sources, and that was never an issue.
SQS: Where do you see the story heading now?
MF-W: There are two stories at work. BALCO and the federal investigation, and the question of what's going to happen to the guys indicted [Conte, BALCO vice president James Valente, Bonds' trainer Anderson and Olympic track coach Remy Korchemny, who are charged with providing performance-enhancing drugs to athletes]. ... Conte went on ABC's "20/20" and admitted to the crimes. ...
The other part of the story is the use of steroids by elite athletes. You've got Major League Baseball dealing with a steroid-testing policy, you've got Washington talking about it, stories about kids using steroids. That's the part of the story that we think will resonate the most with the public.
