The Original Collection consists of television production files, which were compiled in his capacity as NBC news producer, together with a small quantity of miscellaneous material. Because of his production responsibilities and Washington, D.C. assignment, the collection provides an important resource for examining the television coverage of many events of national significance, which occurred during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The PRODUCTION FILES, 1962-1969, 1972, are arranged alphabetically by series title. For the following weekly news series the collection provides extensive documentation: Congressional Report (1969), Senate Hearings (1966), and This is NBC News (1962-1963). There is somewhat less material for Sunday, Sunday Report, Saturday Report, and for the occasionally-aired A Conversation with the President and The Loyal Opposition. The majority of the production files, however, relate to individual news programs; these are interfiled with the series under the designation “specials.” Also filed with the production files are two folders consisting of scripts for the radio programs Emphasis and Monitor, which may have been used in the preparation of This is NBC News.

Because Asman was responsible for the editorial and technical elements which comprised the news program broadcast over the air, the production files include a wide variety of material. Both the types of material and the depth of documentation vary, however, for each series. For the series for which the materials are extensive, the production files are subdivided topically and filed alphabetically. Typical subjects include budgetary and planning information, publicity, correspondence, and individual program files. The latter are filed chronologically by broadcast date. The specials and series for which the documentation is less extensive are arranged simply by broadcast date. Programs for which no broadcast date could be determined, including This is NBC News and a few specials, are filed alphabetically by subject.

It is within the individual program files that the researcher will find the most interesting and valuable documentation in the collection. The material here ranges from correspondence and memoranda to diagrams of camera angles, crew and correspondent assignments, and co-ordinating routines. Many, but not all, of these program files also contain news scripts written by various NBC correspondents.

In general, the production files reflect the subjects for which Asman was responsible--presidential news conferences and inaugurations, congressional debates and hearings, general news in and around Washington, D.C., and United States efforts in space. Congressional Report, an informal round-table discussion with congressmen hosted by Bill Monroe, includes discussions of Vietnam, military affairs, taxation, and farm policy. Senate Hearings also aired on Sunday afternoons during 1966 focused on subjects then being debated by the Senate such as civil rights, pollution and urban affairs. Sunday Report (also known as Ray Scherer's Sunday Report) devoted itself to in-depth treatments of major events which occurred during the summer of 1963, including President Kennedy's trip to Germany, Sunday, which was broadcast during the summer of 1965, adopted a more typical news format and each program included several filmed reports of contemporary reference. This is NBC News (THIN) was a summer, then a regular-season, Sunday afternoon program hosted by Ray Scherer, which combined regular weekend news coverage with more comprehensive filmed reports of world-wide scope.

Among the many subjects touched on by the individual news specials, the following are the most substantial files within the collection:

Among the material included with the MISCELLANEOUS FILES are notes and correspondence for several speeches, notes for a contract with NBC dated December 1967, and a sample of the vizmo labels mentioned in the production files.

The collection is supplemented by a tape recording of one segment of the annual Loyal Opposition series which is not documented in the manuscript material.