BALCO Scandal - Media Coverage of Scandal

Media Coverage of Scandal

The media coverage of the BALCO case has been extremely extensive. The San Francisco Chronicle, and more specifically Chronicle journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, have played a prominent role in covering the story; ultimately collaborating in Game of Shadows, a book chronicling the BALCO scandal.

Fainaru-Wada and Williams broke the story concerning U.S. track coach Trevor Graham and his admission to turning a syringe laced with THG over to investigators. That syringe was the catalyst for the entire investigation of Conte’s lab. These journalists also wrote the story about C.J. Hunter (Marion Jones’ ex-husband) and his interview with an IRS agent, in which Hunter told the agents that Jones was taking performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Hunter said that at times, he injected the drugs into Jones himself. He also admitted to taking steroids, and said that he had obtained them through Conte.

The duo’s most groundbreaking story, however, was their report on October 16, 2004, of a secret audio conversation that contained Greg Anderson (Barry Bonds’ trainer) stating that Bonds had been using steroids provided by Victor Conte and himself. Anderson also revealed the names of numerous Olympic athletes that had been provided with "The Clear", boasting that neither they nor Bonds would test positively on a drug test because the substance was undetectable.

After reporting on the BALCO case, Fainaru-Wada and Williams took their interviews and observations and published Game of Shadows, a journalistic book that explored every aspect of BALCO, beginning with Conte’s early struggles as an aspiring musician and ending with the federal bust of the BALCO headquarters. Publicly, most of the attention the book received was due to the incriminating evidence of Barry Bond’s ties to BALCO.

They begin by telling of young Victor Conte. He was aspiring musician (and hippie, and alleged drug dealer), but those dreams were quickly dashed. So, undaunted, he decided to open his own health clinic. That idea crashed as well, but the third time was a charm for Conte. He decided that he wanted to become a nutritionist and help star athletes to reach their physical potential. Despite not having a background in chemistry, Conte quickly gained respect among athletes and nutrition buffs.

Fainaru-Wada and Williams then delve into the many different schemes by which the drugs were distributed to these high profile athletes. Trips to Mexico, suspicious address names, and steroids disguised as flaxseed oil were a few among many ways in which the drugs got to the athletes. From there, the book goes on to name the many athletes who received the drugs, and the writers go into great detail describing their thoughts on Barry Bonds. They believed that Bonds was a superior athlete, but was jealous of all the attention that Mark McGwire received in his record-breaking season of 1998. Bonds was jealous, they hypothesized, because McGwire was a suspected "juicer" and the Giants’ slugger wanted to prove that he could compete on a level equal to or exceeding that of McGwire.