Cronkite 'Hooked' heroin documentary to make national broadcast premiere

“Hooked: Tracking Heroin’s Hold on Arizona,” a duPont Award-winning investigative report by students at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is making its national television debut this week.

The 30-minute Cronkite News documentary will air Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on Link TV, a leading independent national satellite network that reaches 34 million households on DirecTV, DISH Network and streaming platforms.

“Hooked,” produced in association with the Arizona Broadcasters Association (ABA), examines the rise and impact of heroin use in Arizona. The documentary reached more than 1 million Arizonans during its premiere last year and recently won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, which has recognized the very best in broadcast journalism for more than 70 years.

“As a continued effort to raise awareness of critical issues, Link TV chose to present the documentary to expose a national audience to an epidemic that has spread well beyond Arizona,” said Link TV co-founder Kim Spencer. “Link TV is dedicated to providing viewers unfiltered programming with a different viewpoint than mainstream media, and the stories and subjects featured in ‘Hooked’ present a balanced look at the heroin epidemic. The goal in broadcasting ‘Hooked’ to a nationwide audience is to inspire viewers to take action against the heroin addiction crisis.”

The commercial-free documentary, the final product of more than 70 student journalists led by Cronkite professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jacquee Petchel, premiered in Arizona in January 2015 on all 33 broadcast television stations in English and Spanish and 93 radio stations, drawing nearly half of the Phoenix viewing audience of the 2014 Super Bowl.

Since its airing, “Hooked” has made history in several journalism contests. With the duPont Award, the win marked just the third time in the history of the contest that a Phoenix-based news operation has received the honor. The documentary has received two of the region’s top professional honors at the Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards, an Emmy in the category of “Societal Concerns – Program/Special” and the Governors’ Award. It also took first place in video storytelling at the Arizona Press Club Awards.

“In the past year, ‘Hooked’ has made a tremendous impact by shining a light on a terrible epidemic that extends beyond the borders of Arizona,” said Cronkite School Dean Christopher Callahan. “We are thrilled for a nationwide audience to have the opportunity to see the amazing reporting of our students.”

Link TV can be watched on DirecTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410. It also is available to stream on Roku.