"There is a huge need for an English news source from Morocco, but mostly, there is a need for an international knowledge of Morocco" - Othman El Oumeir, president of Group Maroc Soir
Over many years The View from Fez has highlighted the need for an English language news outlet in Morocco. Ours has only been one voice in the debate and we are pleased to see that the debate continues. Recently we became aquainted with a very interesting blog written by the journalist Zakaria RMIDI. The blog, Morocco Times, carried the following story, which is reprinted with the author's permission.
Morocco is a country which shows great interest regarding press. The number of newspapers and magazines in this country has grown rapidly in the last few years. Many publications have come into the market, relying not only on the annual financial and technical support provided by the state, but also on the constitutional right which allows citizens to publish different sorts of publications (political, economic, artistic, professional…).
Today Morocco has got more than 400 titles including: daily, weekly, monthly, annual, biannual and irregular publications, written most of the time in three languages: Arabic, French and the Amazigh language. Significant statistics by
Maghreb Arab Press Agency (MAP), on the written press and the public audio-visual communication in Morocco in 2006, show that the Arabic language titles come first by an average of (70,86pc), followed by the French language ones which represent (26,88pc) than the titles appearing in the Amazigh language by (2,26pc). The question should be asked here is a simple one: what about the Moroccan publications written in the English language? Considering this latter commonly used as a medium for the communication of information and news all over the world.
A part of the answer to this question goes back to 1877, when the first weekly newspaper written in the English language was launched in Morocco under the name of “Maghreb Al Aksa”. Today morocco lacks such publications written in English in spite of the repeated attempts to fill the gap occurring at this level.
The last attempt was that of “
The Casablanca Analyst”. A Moroccan English language independent weekly newspaper of general information which used to be appear irregularly. “
The Casablanca Analyst” launched its first issue in May 2007, and the last one to appear was the fifth issue, in May 2008. That is to say, five issues during one year. A period in which “
The Casablanca Analyst” shed light on several serious issues, such that of the Western Sahara conflict and the occupied Moroccan enclaves of Ceuta and Melillia. This was in addition to tackling many other interesting topics in business, society and culture as well as showing a great concern towards literature.
As a matter of fact, before the “
Casablanca Analyst” there was already an English language newspaper in Morocco, which was born under the light of modern technology and the global distribution of the internet network.
It’s “The Morocco Times” which was started on November22, 2004 as an electronic internet based newspaper. “The Morocco Times” www.themoroccotimes.com was under the ownership of “Group Maroc Soir”; one of the major publishing houses which owns several newspapers and online titles in Morocco. Unfortunately, “The Morocco Times” stopped being published at the end of October 2006, few weeks before its second birthday. The reason behind this decision still unknown until now, though “Group Maroc Soir” is a strong publishing house which owns official and semi-official organs of the government notably the pioneer French daily “ Le Matin” and the Arabic title “Assahraa Al Maghribia”.
Morocco Times staff before the closure
“Morocco Today” is another experience that looks like “The Morocco Times”, to some extent. It is also an electronic internet newspaper which tries to attract English-speaking tourists and investors, through defining Morocco as an interesting destination for both tourism and business. Based on what it is written in “Morocco Today” website www.moroccotoday.net the e-paper’s lifetime goes over 20 years old. It has received The Golden Web Award, a prize presented quarterly by The International Association of Web Master and Designers to those sites whose web design and content have achieved a level of excellence deserving recognition. However, at the time being it is something quite clear, to everyone, that the content of this portal stopped being updated for so long. Now, if you open “Morocco Today” website, certainly you’ll find the same articles which are just translated from French or Arabic in some cases. Unfortunately after having contacted “Morocco Today” several times, so I could have more information, no answer I’ve received, which asserts that this portal is no longer working.
(editors note: The View from Fez also checked this site and it was inactive)
At the present time Morocco has only one «timid» voice in English named “
Morocco Newsline”. It is the last portal to appear in the Moroccan media scene and which is still alive up to now.
Morocco Newsline is an online interactive magazine that is trying to involve the reader in the process of writing. It is broken down into several areas of interest: politics, business, society, arts, culture, travels, fashion and so on. Some of the articles published on this portal are those written by the
MAP (Maghreb Arab Press Agency), others are those already written by Reuters news agency. As the other titles, defining Morocco, attracting some tourists and investors to the country and trying to gain some supporters, as far as Western Sahara issue is concerned. These are the main goals behind creating this portal.
Actually no one can deny that Morocco is a multilingual nation, where a variety of languages is used in everyday life; Moroccan Arabic is the mother tongue, Berber or Tamazight is a mother tongue and an unofficial national language spoken by almost 2 thirds of Moroccans, the standard Arabic constitutionally is an official language, French is considered as a first foreign language while English and Spanish in addition to the other vivid languages are of secondary importance. Based on this «traditional equation» it seems quite normal to find in Morocco huge publications written just in Arabic, French and the Amazigh language.
However, the wind of change has brought an other dimension to this equation; the growing importance of English, across the globe, should be dealt with seriously today. English is considered as a global language, spoken as a native language by almost 375 million people and as a second language by around 375 million speakers too. According to a research by the British Council, one out of four of the world’s population speaks English to some level of competence and the demand from the other three-quarters is increasing.
This tells us that a strong title in English at the present time, either in print or internet, is needed in Morocco for a simple reason: the benefit of the international press and the international public opinion, since more than half of the newspapers published in the world are published in English. Even in some countries where English is a minority language, we can find at least one newspaper in English.
To recall, while such shortage in terms of news and information written in English is observed in Morocco, numerous publications written in the same language are easily to be found in this country, either those coming from the east like: the daily “Saudi Gazette” and the weekly Egyptian “El Ahram”, or those coming from the west like: “The Daily Mail”, “The Daily Telegraph”, “Financial Times”, “The Independent” , “The Herald Tribune” and many other titles which address foreign English-speakers in Morocco. On the other hand, Moroccans who enjoy reading some news and information in English make a great effort to find some articles on the net which may respond their expectations.
Story published with the kind permission of the author, Zakaria RMIDI.
Additional Information:
Morocco Times
The Casablanca Analyst.
UPDATE: Since we posted this story we have the good news that "The Casablanca Analyst" is in the market again and, instead of one online news website that speaks in the name of Morocco, now we have two:
www.morocconewsline.com and www.yacout.info Yacout.info is an online magazine that shows a special interest towards the city of Marakech.
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