Alumni $2.3 million pledge ensures unprecedented access to ‘news we all can use’

For more than 50 years, UCLA has been home to a trove of historical visual and audio media - some of which exist nowhere else today. Analog recordings of television and public affairs news programming, including raw footage, scripts, edits, satellite feeds and vintage television commercials were recorded over decades by the late professor Paul Rosenthal and colleagues to capture this content and context for future generations. But the entire collection of more than 100,000 tapes and 400,000 news programs has never been fully accessible.

That will soon change, thanks to a $2.3 million pledge by alumnus Irv Drasnin, a broadcast journalist and documentarian, and his wife, Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin, a communication researcher and writer. Their gift will allow UCLA to digitize and index the material in the UCLA Irv Drasnin and Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin Communication Archive over the next three years and make it available to researchers as well as the general public.

"This has been an important priority of the department and division for a long time, and we could not be more appreciative," said Abel Valenzuela, dean of the social sciences division. "The visionary generosity of Irv and Xiaoyan will ensure that this remarkable resource reaches its full potential and impact as the largest searchable news archive in the country."

Originally a newspaper reporter, Irv Drasnin became a writer, producer and director for daily news programs, including the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite," where his assignments ranged from "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama, the passage of the Voting Rights Act and NASA's Project Mercury 6, the first U.S.-crewed space flight program. He went on to create 30 documentaries for CBS News and PBS, including the Emmy-winning "A Black View of South Africa" and "The Guns of Autumn," which has won awards from the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.

"Irv and I are proud to support the communication archive because we believe in the importance of preserving history. The archive, located here at UCLA, with its world-class library and prominent communication, political science, history and global studies programs, is uniquely positioned to generate and promote scholarly interest to learn from our shared past and promote that knowledge locally and globally," Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin said. "We also believe that the archive, with its vision to adapt to and develop new technologies and to expand coverage, will inspire future scholars and the public to strengthen an independent press and defend democracy."

After earning her Ph.D. in communication from Stanford University, Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin became senior vice president and global director of research and consulting at GfK Roper Public Affairs. She conducted research that spanned over 60 countries, including public diplomacy projects for the U.S. State Department and presentations to clients such as the United Nations and World Bank. A writer and poet, she is now focusing on creative works, including a novel set in 1960s China.

The Drasnins are fitting namesakes for the newly named archive. Not only does Irv - a former UCLA student body president and award-winning editor of the Daily Bruin - have some of his highly acclaimed documentaries preserved in their original airing in the archive, but the couple has also worked on their own archival preservation project spanning Irv's career and time at UCLA, which will be added to the archive.

"UCLA has been a part of my life since I was old enough, at age 10, to take the Pico Avenue bus alone to Westwood, where the last stop was on campus. That was 80 years ago. In many ways, and most of the time, the university was an ideal come true - then open to all with the grades and $50 a semester," Irv Drasnin said. "It was an experience enhanced by my time in student government and on the Daily Bruin, and couldn't have served me better for a career in journalism. (But perhaps my greatest achievement was getting Xiaoyan, a Stanford alumna, to root for the Bruins.)"

There's an additional bit of serendipity in how things came together.

"It's especially cool that Irv not only attended UCLA at the same time as the late Professor Rosenthal but was actually in the same major and honor society - they even served in student government together," said Tim Groeling, a professor of communication who acts as faculty director of the archive. "Their collaboration on our archive was more than 70 years in the making, although they didn't know it at the time!"

In addition to the main TV news collection, the archive includes recordings of hundreds of famous speakers who visited UCLA dating back as early as the 1950s, including Martin Luther King Jr., J. Robert Oppenheimer and Mae West. It has been used for many research projects, including a recent analysis of Los Angeles news coverage of crime and race in 1989 vs. 2019.

"I've been enjoying using the archive for my own work, but the really exciting part for me is making this material accessible and useful to all," Groeling said. "We're very grateful to the Drasnins for making it possible for us to complete our work over the next few years and give this gift to the world."

With only a shoestring budget, Rosenthal was inspired to begin compiling the collection due to Watergate coverage. He worked over nights, weekends and holidays to change tapes and update recordings of every news program he could across several decades. His colleagues, including Francis Steen, have carried on since and contributed their own innovations to the ongoing project.

"The gift means a lot to the department," said Greg Bryant, professor and chair of communication. "Several faculty members have passionately devoted tremendous effort in keeping the archive going after the passing of Professor Rosenthal, so getting this generous gift from the Drasnins now is quite gratifying."