The Islamic Republic News Agency (Persian: خبرگزاری جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎), or IRNA, is the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is government-funded and controlled under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The agency also publishes the newspaper Iran. As of 2010^[update], the Managing Director of IRNA is Ali Akbar Javanfekr. IRNA has 60 offices in Iran and 30 more in various countries around the world.

In 1934, Pars Agency was established by the Foreign Ministry of Iran (Persia) 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 published a bulletin twice daily in French and 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. 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.

Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 – December 22, 1973) was an American actress and most notably writer who created and scripted many of the first American soap operas.

Phillips created (and co-created) radio and TV soap operas including:

Phillips also was a creative consultant on Peyton Place (1964–1969), and was an unofficial consultant on A World Apart, which was created by her adopted daughter Katherine. Irna Phillips was also a story editor on Days of our Lives.

She was also the mentor to Agnes Nixon, the creator of All My Children and One Life to Live, and William J. Bell, the creator of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.^{[citation needed]}

Phillips was one of ten children born to a German Jewish family in Chicago. She studied drama at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (where she became a member of Phi Sigma Sigma sorority), receiving a Master of Arts degree before going on to earn a master's degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Phillips wanted to be an actress. From 1925 to 1930 she worked as a school teacher in Dayton, Ohio, teaching drama and theatre history to schoolchildren. While working in this capacity she continued to attempt a career as an actress, and after performing several acting roles for radio productions at WGN in Chicago, she left her career as a teacher. At the age of 42, Phillips adopted a son, Thomas Dirk Phillips. A year later, she adopted a daughter, Katherine Louise Phillips.