The Consequences of Two-Month Press Strike in 1978-1979

The highly circulated newspapers went on the longest strike ever in the last year of the regime of Pahlavi.The two-month strike began on Nov. 6, 1978 and ended on Jan. 6, 1979, concurrent with the premiership of Gholamreza Azhari. The invasion of the buildings of Ettela’at, Kayhan and Ayandegan newspapers, arresting journalists and issuing arrest warrants for a number of other press activists sparked the strike. This paper intends to study the consequences of the two-month strike in 1978-1979 based on the first-hand documents specially a large volume of the newspapers of the time. The paper has finally come to the conclusion that formation of the two-month press strike fuelled disputes and war of pens between the proponent and opponent journalists on one hand, and brought about development of other ways and means of information dissemination on the other hand. Large groups of people joined the strike who considered the press a new force in their fight against the regime. The result of this support was extreme public welcome and a sharp rise in the circulation of the newspapers. After resumption of publication, with respect to the new political atmosphere, the newspapers performed better information dissemination on the fateful events of that critical period of time.