Irv Drasnin is an American journalist, and a producer-director-writer of documentary films for CBS News and PBS (Frontline, The American Experience, Nova) for over 35 years. Irv’s thirty films cover a wide range of subjects, both domestic and foreign, contemporary, and historical, including a multi-documentary chronicle of modern China beginning with Misunderstanding China (CBS News), Shanghai (CBS News), Looking for Mao (PBS/Frontline), China After Tiananmen (PBS/Frontline) and The Revolutionary, an independent feature-length film. His foreign reporting also covered southern Africa and the last stands of white colonial rule in Who’s Got A Right to Rhodesia (CBS News) and in Apartheid (PBS/Frontline). Mr. Drasnin’s domestic topics include The Guns of Autumn (CBS News), You and the Commercial (CBS News), Health in America (CBS News), Inside the Union (CBS News), The Radio Priest (PBS/The American Experience), The Chip vs The Chess Master (PBS/Nova), and Forever Baseball (PBS/The American Experience).
Among the awards he has received for broadcast journalism are the duPont-Columbia, the Directors Guild (DGA), the Writers Guild (WGA), and the American Film and Video Blue Ribbon.
He graduated with a B.A. in political science from UCLA and earned an M.A. in East Asian Studies with a specialization in China from Harvard University. He has taught in the Masters’ Documentary Film Program at Stanford University.