‘Hooked’ Heroin Documentary Nominated for Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy

PHOENIX — (Sept. 23, 2015)

A statewide TV special exploring the escalating and deadly problem of heroin use in Arizona, created by Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been nominated for a Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy Award – the region’s premier professional television award.

The honor was one of five Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy nominations between the Cronkite School and Arizona PBS. Productions, including “ArtBeat Nation,” “Check, Please! Arizona” and “Horizonte,” received Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy nominations. In all, 10 staff members from Arizona PBS took home nominations among four different categories, including arts/entertainment, interview/discussion, community affairs and lighting.

Arizona PBS, which became part of the Cronkite School a year ago, includes three TV channels and azpbs.org, and serves as a journalistic “teaching hospital” for ASU students as well as a test bed for innovation and experimentation within the industry.

The Cronkite School regularly dominates the Student Production Awards given by the Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and this year is no exception. Cronkite students took more than half of this year’s student nominations – 17 out of 26.

But a Cronkite production had never been nominated for an Emmy Award. “Hooked: Tracking Heroin’s Hold on Arizona,” produced by the Cronkite School in partnership with the Arizona Broadcasters Association, has been nominated in the category of Societal Concerns – Program/Special.  Additionally, the NATAS announced last month that the Cronkite School and the ABA will receive the prestigious Governors’ Award for “Hooked,” marking the first time a journalism school has won the honor typically reserved for professional media organizations.

The Rocky Mountain Southwest Emmy-nominated “Hooked,” which reached more than 1 million Arizonans, traces the rise of heroin use and its impact in Arizona. More than 70 students and eight faculty members at the Cronkite School worked on the project under the direction of Cronkite professor Jacquee Petchel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist.

“We are tremendously proud of our talented students and inspiring professors who created this important piece of journalism, which we hope will continue to have a positive impact on our community,” said Christopher Callahan, dean of the Cronkite School and CEO of Arizona PBS.

In the Student Production Awards, Cronkite students earned nominations for Cronkite News, the news division of Arizona PBS, which includes a weekday broadcast available to 1.9 million households, a robust news website and reporting bureaus in Phoenix, Washington and Los Angeles. The Cronkite School swept the Newscast category with Cronkite News and The Deaf and Hearing Network — an innovative newscast that bridges the gap between the deaf and hearing communities — both receiving nominations.

“Check, Please! Arizona,” the three-time Emmy-winning Arizona PBS series in which viewers dine then dish on local restaurants, was nominated a fifth year in a row for the top honor in the “Interview/Discussion” category. Veteran Arizona PBS videographer Scot Olson also garnered a nomination for his lighting work on “Check, Please! Arizona.”

Arizona PBS producer Jennifer Burke received a nomination a second year in a row for her work on the weekly arts series “ArtBeat Nation” in the category of Arts/Entertainment for the segment “Alabaster Stone Carvers.” The eight-minute piece profiles a local couple, who hand gather rare colored and translucent alabasters from the southwestern desert and carve them into remarkable and unusual pieces of art. In 2014 Burke won the Emmy for the “ArtBeat Nation” segment “Tin Can Art.”

And Arizona PBS producer Laarni Fernandez Nuez was nominated in the Public/Current Affairs category for a segment on the “President’s Executive Order on Immigration” which aired on “Horizonte,” the Arizona PBS public affairs program examining local issues through a Hispanic lens, hosted by José Cárdenas. This was the second nomination involving the series. This year’s Rocky Mountain Emmy and Student Production Awards ceremony will take place Oct. 17 at Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale.

NATAS is a professional service organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, educational and technical achievements within the television industry. The Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter, formed in 1959, represents Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and El Centro, Calif.

Rocky Mountain Emmy Nominations
Societal Concerns – Program/Special

Jacquee Petchel, Mark Lodato, Erin Patrick O’Connor, Elizabeth Blackburn and Sean Logan
“Hooked: Tracking Heroin’s Hold on Arizona”
Cronkite News

Arts/Entertainment – Program Feature – Segment

Jennifer Burke
“Alabaster Stone Carvers”
ArtBeat Nation

Interview/Discussion – Program/Special or Series

Kelly McCullough, Nancy Southgate, Suzanne Guery, Mark Harms, Angela Steele, Robert McGrath and Scott Wallin
Check, Please! Arizona

Public/Current/Community Affairs – Program/Special

Laarni Fernandez Nuez
Horizonte

Lighting – Location or Studio

Scot Olson Lighting composite project

Arizona PBS