153 Country Report: Information Network
Grace Murphy
- “Traditional” periodicals, such as newspapers and magazines (4)
- Morocco World News is an English digital newspaper that provides current news pertaining to politics, sports, economy, culture, and more. Morocco World News provides information on Morocco as well as North Africa and the Middle East as a whole. According to Morocco World News, their publications are without political bias and their aim is to provide accessible and accurate information about Morocco and the MENA region to a wide audience. The site has a wide range of content ranging from news reports to opinion pieces on an array of topics. The site itself is easy to navigate and well organized. Morocco World News can be accessed through this link: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/.
- The Moroccan Times is an English digital newspaper site that, like MWN, provides news on politics, economy, culture, and more. The Moroccan Times also provides a live Moroccan news broadcast. The site isn’t as easy to navigate as MWN, but has a section on the royal family and their activities which provides useful information on the roles of the royal family in society. Compared to most of the articles on MWN, articles on The Moroccan Times site are a little shorter and more concise– so it may be better for quick news. Here is the link to the site: https://moroccotimes.tv/
- Arab news is an online news source that covers an array of regions in the Middle East/ Arab world. A downside to this site is that, considering that Morocco is just one country covered on the site, the coverage on Morocco isn’t as frequent as it is on other sites. However, the articles on Morocco are informative and easy to understand. Despite there being limited articles on Morocco on Arab News, the articles they do have on Morocco are interesting and on topics that I haven’t seen covered on other news sites. For example, there’s an article on Ramadan evenings in Casablanca that paints a really good picture of Moroccan culture and spirituality. While it may not be a consistent source of Moroccan news, the articles definitely provide interesting insight on culture in Morocco. The site can be accessed through: https://www.arabnews.com/tags/morocco
- L’Économiste (The Economist) is one of the largest Francophone news websites published in Morocco. This site is in French and offers news and commentary on a variety of different issues in Morocco as well as those that more broadly relate to Morocco. L’Économiste (when translated in Safari) is sort of hard to understand but with better translating software, it’s likely easier. Another downside to this site is that it requires a subscription to view full articles. The only reason it’s included here is because when I asked my Moroccan friend about news sources that people actually go to in Morocco, they recommended this site to me. This is a key strength of this site, however there are other traditional news sources that provide free news in English such as those previously mentioned.
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“new media” text-based sources, such as blogs and websites (3)
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- The Moroccan Blog is an English site that provides information on an array of news topics in Morocco. The site has some unique information categories that the previously mentioned digital newspapers do not, such as information on travel and tourism as well as news on the Moroccan diaspora. From my exploration of the site, the section on the Moroccan diaspora provides the most interesting and unique information compared to other sites. This section shares stories and news about Moroccans living abroad as well as news on other countries that have a high population of Moroccans in them. The site can be accessed through this link: https://www.themoroccanblog.com/diaspora/
- Rue20 is a news website that provides very frequent (multiple posts a day) on all things Morocco. The site is in Arabic but again, the translations aren’t too bad. While this site covers a lot of the same topics as previous sources mentioned such as economy, politics, and industry, Rue20 has a section exclusively on women’s news. In this section, you can find news on women’s sports, businesses, women in politics, women’s protests, and more. I thought this was interesting as this is the first site I’ve come across with a dedicated page just for women-related news. I think it’s helpful in learning about the struggles that women face in Morocco as the section contains useful articles about various issues that women may be protesting and legislation that relates to or targets women. Here’s the link: https://rue20.com/
- The Moroccan Press Agency (MAP) is a multimedia site that, according to their website, “… offers complete, diversified and objective information covering all national and international news,”. The site is originally in French but in the top right corner of the page, it can be translated into Arabic or English. In terms of this site’s strengths, it seems to have a more business, politics, and industry centered focus. Even when translated into English, the site is slightly difficult to navigate. However, I still found it interesting to see the different focuses of different sites. The site can be accessed here: https://www.map.ma/en/
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- Social media sources (3)
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- Hespress is a digital newspaper but also operates an Instagram news page with over 5 million followers. While the Instagram page provides news in Arabic, captions can be translated into English and their news site can be as well. Their Instagram feed includes short videos and posts with short, easy to read captions. Hespress provides news on sports, culture, society, politics, international relations, and more. Here is the link to their Instagram page: https://instagram.com/hespress?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
- Le360 is a news page on Instagram that posts daily news about Morocco. The profile and its post are in French, but when translated in the Instagram app, are easy to understand. The account posts a carousel of images accompanied by a brief description of the news in the caption. Le360 covers a wide variety of topics from sports to politics and also posts content about international affairs. Le360 has both a French and an Arabic Instagram page, with the Arabic one having significantly more followers. The French version of Le360 can be accessed through this link: https://www.instagram.com/le360fr/?hl=en
- Morocconews_ on Instagram is a widely followed page that posts daily (often multiple times a day) news in Arabic on pretty much every topic you could think of. Language barrier aside (and some awkward translations from Arabic to English), Morocconews_ is a solid pick for people wanting to read quick and concise news stories. From sports to agriculture and international politics, Morocconews_ provides news on relevant issues in Morocco. As with all 3 of these Instagram pages, sometimes, given that the app provides sensible translations, the comment section can provide some insightful discourse on what Moroccans think about the topics presented. Here’s the link: https://www.instagram.com/morocconews_/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
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- Data sources (3)
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- The World Bank data page for Morocco provides useful data and graphs on Morocco. From economic development indicators to data on more social issues such as unemployment, even to environmental issues like access to electricity, the data gives users a well rounded picture of Morocco through data. Some data is mapped on line graphs so that trends over time become more evident and easy to explore. Here is the link:https://data.worldbank.org/country/MA
- The United Nations Women page displays data on different indicators relating to women’s progress in Morocco. Multiple indicators measuring women’s progress in Morocco are visualized in an easy to comprehend manner. Things such as women’s participation in the economy, society, and politics are depicted on this page. Here’s the link: https://data.unwomen.org/country/morocco
- Humanitarian Data provides datasets pertaining to many different countries. For Morocco alone, the site has 91 different datasets covering all sorts of topics from airports to conflicts within the country. The site is easy to use and provides some basic contextual data for the country as well including its population and GDP. All the datasets also have their own little descriptions of what they are and what exactly they’re measuring. Here’s the link: https://data.humdata.org/group/mar?
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- Visual and/or audio-based sources, such as television and radio sites
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- When I asked one of my Moroccan friends what radio station he and other Moroccans use, this was what he recommended to me. While it is in French, Medi 1 Radio is broadcasted from Tangier and provides daily news on sports, politics, and pop culture. It’s more of a casual talk show with an array of hosts and segments. It also serves as a music radio station. Obviously, if you don’t speak French, it’s not too accessible, but it’s interesting to listen to nevertheless. Here’s the link: https://onlineradiobox.com/ma/medi1/
- RIM (Radio de l’information Marocaine) is an offshoot of MAP (Morocco Press Agency ). This site has a few live radio stations that cover different topics such as general news and sports. There are mini podcasts that cover news stories ranging from 1-10 minutes. The major downside is that they’re all in Arabic. I’ve struggled to find any visual/audio based sources in English.
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- Additional sources from the category of your choosing
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- The Global Voices page on Morocco provides news from unique and authentic perspectives in English. While there isn’t a lot of current news on Morocco, with the most current article (at the time of writing) was uploaded in November of 2022, the articles focus on issues that larger outlets may gloss over. The articles are longer and dig deeper into issues than other sites may. Global Voices highlights Moroccan artists and changemakers that have valuable stories to tell about their country and region as a whole. Here’s the link to Global Voice’s page on Morocco: https://globalvoices.org/-/world/middle-east-north-africa/morocco/