REPORTER USES FILM TO GIVE DRUG-RAVAGED COUNTY A VOICE

Joe Day's journalism career dates back to a time before Watergate made
reporting a glamour job, a grittier time when reporters put their
cigarettes out on newsroom floors.

And the lessons he learned working for the Milwaukee Journal and the
Providence (R.I.) Journal Bulletin in the 1960s are still serving him well
30 years later.

"I still believe the best way to do stories is to go into communities and
talk to the people who live there," said Day, a part-time teacher of
journalism at the University of New Mexico. "And I've always liked telling
stories about regular people, people who are not prominent."

That's exactly what Day, 64, has done in "Rio Arriba: Tragedy and Hope," a
one-hour television documentary about the drug epidemic in the poor,
northern New Mexico county.

"The fact it is told in the voices of the people who live there is
important to me," Day said during a phone interview from his home south of
Santa Fe. "There is no narration. Sometimes documentary people feel there
needs to be another voice, but I don't think so in this case."

Day and Manuel Machuca are co-producers of the documentary, which was
funded by a grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation.

Day did the reporting and the writing. Machuca filmed it.

Two facts drew them to the story.

Fact one, Day says, is that New Mexico ranks first in the nation in per
capita deaths due to heroin overdoses.

Fact two is that Rio Arriba County has many more drug-related deaths than
any other place in the state. By the middle of September, at least 20
deaths in Rio Arriba had been attributed to drugs.

That number does not include the deaths of Ricky Martinez and Karen
Castanon, 17-year-olds who were gunned down on April 21 as they walked
along a dark highway in Rio Arriba County during the annual Good Friday
pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayo.

But Day explores their deaths in the documentary because the killings are
considered part of the culture of drugs and violence in the county.

The documentary includes interviews with members of the Martinez and
Castanon families.

There is also footage of an Oct. 9 march against violence, in which about
500 people completed the walk Martinez and Castanon were unable to finish.

"This is a documentary about hope as well as tragedy because there are a
lot of courageous and dedicated people trying to do something about the
problem," Day said. "We really developed quite a bit of closeness with and
respect for people there who are talking about the problem."

Day talked to drug addicts, the families of addicts and survivors of
addiction, drug and addiction counselors, law enforcement officers, area
clergy, street kids, the emergency room director at the Espanola hospital,
Espanola jail inmates and elementary school children and teachers.

"We met a woman whose husband had died of an overdose, a former addict
herself," he said. "We went to El Paso and Juarez, met DEA agents and have
surveillance tapes of drugs being brought into this country. We have a
little girl, about 8 years old, talking about a member of her family who
died from drugs."

Day said the thing that surprised him most while making the documentary was
the willingness of the people who live in Rio Arriba County to discuss the
drug problem there.

"You think people don't want to talk about it, but they do," Day said.
"People are willing to face up to this in their community. Maybe that's
because it is so pervasive that trying to hide it wouldn't work."

The documentary is in no way an investigative story.

"The problem is well known," Day said. "But I would call it a hard look at
the situation."

Day and Machuca started work on the film early this year. They tried to
answer three questions in the documentary:

What is the nature of the problem?

How did it come about?

Is there basis for hope?

The second question is probably the most difficult to answer, but Day said
his film provides a theory.

"There are a couple of things," he said. "Poverty plays a big role and the
lack of good jobs. But the other thing that plays a role is the loss of the
culture."

Day said the erosion of the rural-agricultural culture in the predominantly
Hispanic county is partially to blame. Ripped from their place in life by a
changing economy, some of these people turned to drugs and alcohol.

"This problem goes back two or three generations," Day said. "People in the
documentary talk about their parents having these problems."

Day does not pretend to understand all the complex issues that have
resulted in the plague of drugs that infects Rio Arriba County.

"I'm just telling you what people have told me," he said. "I'm not a
sociologist. I'm a reporter."

A reporter who learned many years ago the value of letting people tell
their stories.

"The more things are talked about the better," he said. "The more you shed
light on things, the better things will be."

The program will be broadcast on KNME-Channel 5 on Tuesday night starting
at 8 p.m. It will be followed by an hour-long live discussion of the
problem from Rio Arriba County, including as a panelist Gov. Gary Johnson
- -- who has advocated legalization of drugs -- and a live call-in connection
for viewers.