Irv Drasnin

Drasnin is a graduate of Carthay Center Elementary School, John Burroughs Junior High School and Los Angeles High School (1952). He has a BA in political science from UCLA, where he was student body president (1955–56);[5] editor of The Daily Bruin (for which the paper was awarded an All-American rating as one of the top five college dailies in the country); and Men's Representative to the Student Council (1954). He also was a member of Project India (1954),[6] one of twelve students selected each year to spend the summer in India, speaking about America and interacting with Indian college students.

He has a MA from Harvard in East Asian Studies (1957–59) with a specialization in China. He taught in the Master's Film Program at Stanford University (1980–82).

Irv Drasnin speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong (2012)

He began his career as a reporter at United Press International, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eastern division news headquarters (1959–60), where the stories he covered included the steelworkers strike of 1959, the visits of Soviet leaders Kozlov and Khrushchev, Wightman Cup Tennis, and the siege of Chicken Hill (a cops and bank robbers shootout). He wrote both for newspapers and radio.

In 1961 he was hired by CBS News as a writer for daily news broadcasts, becoming a producer for Calendar, a public affairs program with Harry Reasoner; and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. His assignments for the evening news included a wide range of major news events, most prominently the civil rights movement. He was the producer of CBS News coverage in Selma, Alabama including "Bloody Sunday" (March 1965) and for the Senate passage of the Voting Rights Act that followed. Other notable assignments included the Republican Convention of 1964, the successful presidential campaign of Lyndon Johnson, the funeral of Winston Churchill in London, the space program (the Mercury 6 flight of Wally Schirra), and the World Series,[7] Dodgers vs the Orioles, Cardinals vs. the Red Sox.

CBS News, 1966–79. PBS, 1982–92, for Frontline, The American Experience and Nova.

Misunderstanding China, CBS News, 1972:[8] This film became a landmark for its penetrating examination of the myths and misconceptions that have defined America's view of China and the Chinese—and the consequences for US-China relations. It was broadcast as President Nixon was on his way to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong. Even now, as the US-China relationship remains fraught with challenges and conflicts, this film still is in circulation.

Looking for Mao, PBS/Frontline, 1983:[9] Five years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, one of the most catastrophic political upheavals of the 20th century, China turned away from Maoism to implement political and economic reforms. In the spirit of those times, Drasnin was able to film the changes taking place, allowed access, interviews and freedom of movement not possible before Mao's death, and not often since.

The Guns of Autumn, CBS News, 1975:[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] This film about hunting in America touched a raw nerve, even though it depicted only hunting practices that were widely in use and legal, often under the supervision of state game agencies. The response was said to be a record for a network documentary, an estimated 37-thousand letters, cards and calls, pro and con. Much of the negative reaction was organized by the National Rifle Association, hunting organizations and the outdoors press—even before the film was broadcast.

You and the Commercial, CBS News, 1973:[18][19][20] The first network documentary to explore television advertising and its impact on the American viewer, probing the claims and techniques of the advertising industry which pays most of the network's bills. Truth in advertising had become an issue that was investigated in this unprecedented report.

The Radio Priest, PBS/The American Experience, 1988:[21][22] The Great Depression of the 1930s were years of economic distress, anger, confusion and an urgent search for answers, a time when Americans were vulnerable to charlatans and demagogues. Few voices in that troubled era would sound as promising, or threatening, as that of the Radio Priest, Charles Coughlin—or be more a cause for reflection than it is today.

Apartheid, PBS/Frontline, 1988:[23][24] A secret meeting between white South Africans and the outlawed African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's black liberation movement, had to be held in Dakar, Senegal. This is an account of that clandestine and candid confrontation, a search for common ground and a way out of Apartheid, the separation of races that was the basis for white rule.

The Chip vs The Chess Master, PBS/Nova, 1991:[25] At the beginning of the computer age, the chess board became a laboratory for testing the limits of the machine. In this film, a face-to-face confrontation between world chess champion Gary Kasparov and an IBM computer, it was the machine testing the limits of man.

Health in America: The Promise and the Practice, CBS News, 1970:[26][27] This film takes an uncompromising look at the claim that Americans were receiving the best health care in the world. The issues covered include the economic, geographic and racial disparities in the quality of care and who gets it, part of a national debate that still roils our health care system, and politics.