Mark Fainaru-Wada to speak in Reno

Mark Fainaru-Wada, the co-author (with Lance Williams) of one of the best investigative journalism series and books I have ever read, Game of Shadows, will be speaking in Reno on April 24 at 7:00 pm at the Jot Travis Student Union on the campus of the University of Nevada.

The facts

Fainaru-Wada faced possible jail time because he and Williams refused to name their anonymous source used for a lot of information in their book. He will be at the Reynolds School of Journalism as a guest of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) to speak to classes on ethics and sports journalism during the day and give a talk that evening.

Expected to be a topic of discussion is the writer’s pursuit of evidence that Barry Bonds used illegal steroids to aid his pursuit of baseball’s most coveted record, the record for career home runs.

Tickets for the speaking engagement are $25 ($10 for students) and can be purchased by contacting Paul Mitchell.

My take

As I walked up to class today and saw the flyer for this, I ws totally stoked. I was borderline obsessed with this topic before I began school last Summer. The book was the topper to all of the information I had read to that point, and the subpoenas that were issued to the authors kept me interested in it for a longer time. I actually have talked to some reporter friends and told them that these guys are on the list of people I’d kill to have lunch with at some point. I have lots of questions and feel like I’ll take up too much valuable time if I don’t check myself. It should go without saying that I’ll be there.