Mark Fainaru-Wada

Fainaru-Wada has been an investigative reporter with ESPN since 2007 and is the co-author of two New York Times best-sellers, “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” and “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports.”

“League of Denial,” written with Fainaru-Wada’s brother/colleague Steve Fainaru, won the 2014 PEN Award for Literary Sports Writing. The brothers, who reported dozens of exclusive stories on the topic for ESPN, also served as reporters and writers on a companion documentary for PBS’s award-winning program “Frontline.” The documentary won the prestigious George Polk and Peabody awards, and Fainaru-Wada earned another Peabody for related work with ESPN colleagues.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, Fainaru-Wada and colleague Lance Williams earned a Polk Award and a string of other national honors in 2004 and 2005 for their coverage of the BALCO steroids scandal. In May 2006, Fainaru-Wada and Williams were issued subpoenas to testify before a grand jury investigating the source(s) of some of the information they published in The Chronicle and their book. The reporters vowed not to reveal their sources and were sentenced to up to 18 months in prison; the government ultimately dropped the subpoenas while the case was on appeal.