This week on New Mexico in Focus, correspondent Antonia Gonzales begins the show’s series of candidate conversations featuring leading contenders for Governor, Congress, and Navajo Nation President. Current Navajo President Jonathan Nez tells Antonia that his leadership can help carry his tribe through the end of the pandemic. But challenger Dr. Buu Nygren says it’s past time to open the tribe back up and to move on from the crisis. 

Gene Grant and the Line Opinion Panel talk through new developments in the race for Attorney General. Pre-trial detention has become a major issue in the contest. The panel debates the positions of each candidate.  

Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus continues her series of discussions on the future of the greater Chacho landscape. She speaks with Mario Atencio, whose family lives on the eastern Navajo Nation, where oil and gas development have affected the land and water. Atencio is the Greater Chaco Energy Organizer with Diné CARE, or Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, and he talks about why increased protections for communities and landscapes are so important. 

Senior Producer Lou DiVizio sits down with New Mexico Secretary of Indian Affairs Lynn Trujillo to talk about the state’s inaugural ‘Missing in New Mexico Day.’ It’s just one of several steps the state is taking after a formal response plan was drafted to address the crisis of missing indigenous people.  

New Mexico in Focus airs on NMPBS 5.1 (KNME HD) Friday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 a.m., and streaming on the PBS video app. 

NMiF Segments
Candidate Conversations: Navajo Nation President, Jonathan Nez  Correspondent  Antonia Gonzales 

Guest
Jonathan Nez, President, Navajo Nation
 

Candidate Conversations: Navajo Nation Presidential Candidate, Dr. Buu Nygren  
Correspondent

Antonia Gonzales 

Guest
Dr. Buu Nygren, Ed.D., Candidate, Navajo Nation President
 

Working to Protect the Greater Chaco Landscape 
Correspondent
 
Laura Paskus
 

Guest
Mario Atencio, Greater Chaco Energy Organizer, Diné CARE
 

NM’s Inaugural ‘Missing in New Mexico Day’ 
Correspondent

Lou DiVizio 

Guest 
Sec. Lynn Trujillo, NM Department of Indian Affairs
 

The Line opinion panel
Dede Feldman, fmr. NM State Senator
 

Merritt Allen, Vox Optima Public Relations
 

Serge Martinez, professor, UNM School of Law
 

Host
Gene Grant

New Mexico in Focus is the New Mexico PBS prime-time news magazine show covering the events, issues, and people that are shaping life in New Mexico and the Southwest. NMiF takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic health, education, and art issues, and explores them in-depth with a critical eye to give them context beyond the "news of the moment." 

New Mexico in Focus Senior Producer for Public Affairs is Lou DiVizio. "Our Land" Senior Producer is Laura Paskus. Co-producer of New Mexico in Focus is Kathy Wimmer. Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by the McCune Charitable Foundation and Viewers Like You.

Funding for the Your New Mexico Government Project comes from the Thornburg Foundation and New Mexico Local News Fund.

Funding for Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present & Future, is provided in part by the Neeper Natural History Programming Fund for KNME-TV. 

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