NY Times' Michael Powell On Al Jazeera Doping Report: 'There's Something Going On'
BOSTON (CBS) -- The New York Times dug deeper into Al Jazeera's report on a major doping ring involving several high-profile athletes. A team of reporters led by Michael Powell uncovered an apparent connection between the seemingly random group of players named by Charles Sly in Al Jazeera's documentary The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers.
Powell joined Toucher and Rich Thursday to talk about the Times' new report and the story as a whole. Without heaping guilt on anyone in particular, Powell expressed great skepticism over Sly's business partnership with trainer Jason Riley, who has gotten a lot of recognition for his work with baseball players in the post-steroid era and worked with many of the players named in Al Jazeera's report.
"How come [Sly] is in business with one of the very top trainers in the world?" asked Powell. "He's not there because of his ripped body ... He's there because, presumably, he's a pharmacologist."
Curiously, one of the companies highlighted in the Times' report is Elementz Nutrition, which happened to dissolve and shutter its doors at the same time the Times pursued them for comment.
What about the media coverage of the report, which also heavily implies a connection between Peyton Manning and HGH? Powell shot down the absurd assertions by some national media pundits about the credibility of Al Jazeera as a news organization
"The anti-American stuff is ridiculous," he said. "It's a big news organization. They've done a lot of work around the world on all kinds of stories."
For the record, there is no apparent connection between Manning and Riley or Elementz Nutrition.
Powell defended Al Jazeera's methods in the documentary, which involved undercover reporting by British hurdler Liam Collins, who secretly recorded Sly's comments. Others have wondered why Collins didn't press Sly further on the comments regarding Peyton Manning; he couldn't do it like a normal interview.
"It's a risky way of doing reporting because someone doesn't know they're being taped," Powell said, "and so you can't do the usual back-and-forth you would do with a source."
Powell commented on the "reality" of doping in sports, which ostensibly remains rampant and far from under control.
"There's something going on out there, and we're kidding ourselves if we think the league has a handle on this."
Listen to the full interview with Michael Powell below.
