Iranian state television

Iranian state television is the colloquial term for IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting), Iran's constitutional broadcasting monopoly. The director is appointed directly by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the network operates more than thirty television channels and thirty radio networks alongside the international English-language service Press TV. Every written statement and formal address from the Supreme Leader is transmitted exclusively through IRIB, making the broadcaster inseparable from the architecture of clerical authority. IRIB is not an independent news organisation; it is a state instrument whose editorial decisions serve regime policy, which limits its credibility as a source while simultaneously making it the primary window through which the outside world observes official Iranian positions.

During the Iran-US conflict 2026, IRIB has performed three distinct wartime functions: casualty reporting, exclusive propagation of Supreme Leader statements, and judicial propaganda through forced-confession broadcasts. Its casualty figures, including eight dead from the B1 highway bridge strike of 3 April 2026, are cited internationally but carry the standing caveat that they reflect regime-approved data.

On 30 April 2026, IRIB served as the exclusive medium through which Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei read his written statement claiming 'new management' of the Strait of Hormuz. On 27 May 2026, IRIB aired draft MOU terms purporting to show Hormuz restored to commercial traffic within a month; the White House called the broadcast 'a complete fabrication', illustrating IRIB's dual wartime role as both official channel and disinformation vector.

IRIB also continued airing forced-confession videos of protest detainees throughout the conflict. On 30 May 2026, state media broadcast a forced-confession video of martial-arts champion Benyamin Naqdi, 26, sentenced to death the same day by a Shiraz Revolutionary Court on a moharebeh charge. The practice extends IRIB's judicial-propaganda function: forced confessions are produced under duress for domestic broadcast, shaping Iranian public perception of demonstrators as criminals. Human rights monitors treat IRIB's silence on executions or protests as itself newsworthy data, alongside its explicit content.