He formerly was a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, where he and Lance Williams achieved fame in covering the BALCO steroid scandal.

He is co-author of Game of Shadows with Williams, a 2006 book about the BALCO scandal, and League of Denial, co-written with his brother Steve Fainaru, a 2013 book about traumatic brain injury in the National Football League.

Fainaru-Wada was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Marin County, north of San Francisco.

He soon returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, writing for the short-lived National Sports Daily.

When the Daily folded in 1991, he freelanced, taught high school English, and briefly worked at the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat before relocating to Washington D.C. to work for the Scripps Howard News Service[3][4] He joined the San Francisco Examiner in 1997, and the Chronicle in 2000.