Tightrope

Before a great investigative story reaches the page or screen, there is another story the audience almost never sees.

There are sources to win over, doors to knock on, documents to find, editors to convince, lawyers to satisfy, powerful people pushing back—and countless leads that go nowhere. There are also lines a reporter has to decide whether they are willing to cross.

In Tightrope, award-winning investigative journalist Armen Keteyian reveals that hidden world for the first time, retracing more than four decades at Sports Illustrated, ABC News, CBS Sports, Real Sports, CBS News, 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Sports, and The Athletic. Along the way, he takes readers inside landmark reporting involving Tiger Woods, Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Steve McNair, Isiah Thomas, Penn State, Baylor, the NFL, the NBA, college football, sports gambling, steroids, sexual abuse, and more.

These are not simply stories about famous athletes. They are stories about how stories are found—and what happens when the pursuit of truth collides with money, celebrity, institutional power, fear, loyalty, and ambition.

Keteyian also chronicles an extraordinary era when news organizations invested deeply in investigative sports reporting and reporters were expected not merely to cover the games but to hold the people who controlled them accountable.

Candid, suspenseful, funny, and deeply personal, Tightrope is both a memoir of a remarkable career and a behind-the-scenes education in reporting: how to gain trust, protect a source, conduct a difficult interview, survive a dry hole, challenge the official story, and know when to keep digging.

Above all, it is about the value of a good name—and what it takes to keep one while walking the wire.