Islamic Republic News Agency (IRAN)

The Islamic Republic News Agency in Retrospect

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) was established in 1934 by the Foreign Ministry of Iran as the country's official national news outlet. For the next six years it operated under the Iranian Foreign Ministry working to disseminate national and international news. Pars Agency, as it was then known, published a bulletin twice a day in French and in Persian which it circulated among government officials, international news agencies in Tehran and the local press.

In May 1940, the General Tablighat Department was founded and the agency then became an affiliate of the department organizationally.

Agence France Press (AFP) was the first international news agency whose reports Pars Agency used. Gradually, the Iranian news agency expanded its sources of news stories to include those of Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and the United Press International (UPI). An agreement with the Anatolia News Agency of Turkey further expanded the agency's news outlets to countries worldwide. The link-up also enabled it to provide classified bulletins to a limited number of high-ranking public officials.

It was in 1954 that Pars Agency made a significant move forward. It recruited better-educated people thereby improving its professional services while continuing to avail of dispatches of international newsagencies. It also went on air with radio broadcasts of international
news which it translated into Persian and offered to subscribers
locally.

Expanding further in news coverage, it operated under the supervision of various state offices and ministries such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephones, Office of the Prime Minister and the Labor Ministry until 1947. In 1957, the General Department of Tablighat fell under the supervision of the Publications Department of Tehran Radio as an independent department.

In 1963 the Information Ministry was created and activities of Pars
Agency was brought under this ministry. Its name was changed to `Pars News Agency,' or PANA, which then began operating 'round the clock.

In July 1975 a bill was passed by the country's legislature which
established the Ministry of Information and Tourism and changed the status of Pars News Agency to a joint public stock with capital assetsof about 300 million rials. It then became an affiliate of the new ministry. Its Articles of Association in 23 paragraphs and notes were adopted by the then National Consultative Assembly of Iran.

After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979 the
revolution's council, in June 1979, decided to rename the Ministry of Information and Tourism to the National Guidance Ministry (or Ministry of National Guidance). This was followed in December, 1981 bya bill passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) changing the name of the country's official news agency from Pars News Agency to Islamic Republic News Agency.