Moroccan Newspapers in English, French and Arabic

Newspapers in Morocco are primarily published in Arabic and French, and to a lesser extent in Amazigh (Berber), English, and Spanish.  Africa Liberal, a Spanish daily, was the first paper published in the country and was launched in 1820, followed by El Eco de Tetuán founded in 1860  also in Spanish. Al Maghrib was the first Arabic newspaper of the country and was established in 1886.  

The government of Morocco owns many key media outlets, including Moroccan radio and television, and the Moroccan press agency, Maghreb Arab Press.

Moroccans have access to approximately 2,000 domestic and foreign publications. Many of the major dailies and weeklies can now be accessed on their own Web sites. Morocco has 27 AM radio stations, 25 FM radio stations, 6 shortwave stations, and 11 television stations including the channels of the public SNRT, the mixed-ownership (half public-half private) 2M TV and the privately owned Medi 1 TV.

In 1999, the number of French language newspapers distributed in the country was 130,000 while it was 62,000 in 1981. As of 2013, 71% of the papers were published in Arabic and 27% in French.

Actualités Maroc (Oujda) [In Arabic]
Ahdath Maghribiya (Casablanca)
Al-Alam
Aljamaa
Aljarida24 (Casablanca)
Al Khabar (Marrakech)
Alittihad Ichtiraki (Casablanca)
Al Mountakhab
Al Obor
Alyoum24
Amazigh World News (Amazigh/Berber)
Assabah (Casablanca)
Assahra Al Maghribia (Casablanca)
Aujourd´hui Le Maroc
Bladibella (Casablanca) [In Italian]
Cawalisse Alyoum (Rabat)
Emarrakech.info (Marrakech)
Fes Press
Hesleaks
Hespress (Rabat)
Hiba Press
Khbirate
Le360
L'Economiste
L'écopress (Oujda) [In French]
L'Opinion
La Gazette du Maroc (Casablanca)
La Nouvelle Tribune [In French]
La Vie Éco
Le Journal de Tanger (Tangier)
Lemag [In French & English]
Le Matin
Les Journaux (Casablanca) [In French & Arabic]
Les Journaux Marocain (Tanger) [In Arabic, French & English]
Libération [In French]
Maghreb Arabe Presse [In Arabic, French & English available]
Maghreb Daily News [In English]
Maroc Hebdo International
Marocpress.ma (Casablanca) [In Arabic]
Medias24 (Casablanca)
Meknescity (Meknes)
Menara [In Arabic]
Maroc Telegraph [In Arabic]
The Moroccan Times [In English]
Morocco Media [In English]
Morocco Newsline [In English]
Morocco Today [In English]
Morocco World News [In English]
NTA Newstime [In English]
Oujda Portail (Oujda)
Rue20.com (Rabat)
Tawiza (Amazigh/Berber)
Tel Quel [French]
World Folio
Zagora Press

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Sensationalism and Inaccuracy in Reporting Damages Morocco

Reporting of the recent atrocities in France has had an unfortunate side consequence for Morocco. Time and again the suspects were named as being French or Belgian - "of Moroccan origin". The result is the perception that somehow Moroccans were involved. 

To be clear, a Belgian or French national, is French or Belgian, no matter where their mother, father or grandfather was born.

According to Moroccan websites and social media, Moroccans reject any connection with the terrorists and like almost every other nationality has been showing strong solidarity with the people of Paris.

"Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Moroccan who was behind the attacks in Paris"  - a review article entitled published in the online journal Le 360 

The most obvious case in point is that of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged sponsor of the attacks on November 13. Almost every news outlet, including some in Morocco, stressed that he had Moroccan parents. The information spread like wildfire in Morocco, relayed by the national media and social networks, provoking a wide variety of angry reactions.

"In my opinion, it is not authentic to label Abaaoud as Moroccan as he is a Belgian. I have nothing against dual nationality, quite the contrary,  but he grew up in Belgium. He speaks Arabic very badly, he knows nothing of Morocco," says Alioua Mehdi, a sociologist and lecturer at the International University in Rabat.

It raises the interesting question as to why Morocco is seen in such negative light.  Supposedly it enhances the news value of a story to label a terrorist as "Moroccan", when he patently has only an ancestral connection with the Kingdom. It is irresponsible and lazy journalism.

Following the Paris and Tunis attacks Moroccan tourism has taken a hit with local tourism professionals telling The View From Fez that tourist numbers have dropped dramatically.

Morocco has also caused anger in the ranks of daech (ISIL) by its assistance to French and Belgian security agencies. The group posted threats to Morocco on social media including  "to annihilate soldiers, blow up palaces and destroy the economy".  In response Morocco is on high alert.

Arabic daily Al Massae reports that Morocco's civilian security forces (police) and military (Royal Gendarmerie and the Auxiliary Forces) and its intelligence services are on high alert. The State Security Intelligence Unit, the DGSN has cancelled police leave and significantly increase the degree of vigilance at borders, airports and ports to to prevent terrorists entering the country.

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Will Morocco's Second Language, French, Eventually Give Way To English?

The BBC has an interesting story on the continued push for English in Morocco. The report claims that English speaking in Morocco on the increase.

Despite being independent from France for almost 50 years, French is still widely spoken in Morocco - it's the country's second official language behind Arabic. The lack of English programmes at festivals and the paucity of information for tourists in English is seen as hampering development.

But a change is coming, and with international companies demanding English speaking workers and a large youth population exposed to Western films and pop music is the appeal of speaking French waning?

Nora Fakim reports. (NOTE: The following video may not load on some smart phone and tablets)



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A New Player In Morocco's English Language Media

"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 the years The View from Fez has supported the call for more English language media in Morocco. Since we began in 2005 a number of online or print publications have started up and eventually fallen by the wayside. Now there is another brave player entering the scene.  

According to their publicity release, the news website Morocco Mirror was launched by a group of Moroccan anglophone journalists dedicated to writing about and covering mainly political, economic, social and sports events.

The history of English language media in Morocco is not a happy one as journalist Zakaria Rmidi reported back in 2009. The first attempt in print was in 1877, when a weekly newspaper written in the English language was launched in Morocco under the name of Maghreb Al Aksa.

Regular readers of The View from Fez will remember the rise and fall of The Casablanca Analyst. Touted as an independent weekly newspaper, it used to 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. During that time The Casablanca Analyst wrote well on several serious issues, such as that of the Western Sahara conflict and the occupied Moroccan enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. This was in addition to tackling many other interesting topics in business, society and culture as well as showing a great interest in literature.

Before The Casablanca Analyst, there was already an English language newspaper in Morocco on the internet. The Morocco Times was started on November 22, 2004 as an internet based newspaper. The Morocco Times 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 ceased publication at the end of October 2006, a few weeks before its second birthday. The reason behind this decision is still unknown. 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.

The new kid on the block, Morocco Mirror, claims that it was launched to fill the gap left by the closure of The Morocco Times and to compensate for the lack of professional Moroccan-English newspapers either online or printed.  In fact, a search of the internet shows that there are many professional players in the media market and in the social media sector.  Some are based in Morocco, while others are overseas with reporters in Morocco. Major players include the widely read Morocco World News,  and the Morocco News Board.

Covering the entire Maghreb are online publications such  as Magharebia . This is an AFRICOM sponsored online news web site dedicated to coverage of North Africa. Online since Oct 2004, it is the only regional website that publishes identical content in three languages; Arabic, English and French. Magharebia allows visitors to comment on its articles and translates visitor contributed comments into Arabic, English and French.

Surprisingly Morocco Times is not extinct - journalist Zakaria Rmidi still runs a blog by that name, although publishes intermittently. Another site, Morocco Newsline appears not to have published since May this year.

A more impressive online site is Yacout Info which has a fresher appearance and offers more original content.

Hardly none of those e-newspapers available, apart from the website of State press agency (MAP), report from inside Morocco. Actually, at present, Morocco Mirror is the only Morocco-based English Daily.- Morocco Mirror Press Release

The Morocco Mirror claim to be the only English daily is bold. The biggest problem they have is that their content is the usual  mix of AFP, AP and MAP stories with, unfortunately, very little original content. A quick check of their Opinion section shows only one story (published in September), which was written by Michael J Totten and previously published in the American World Affairs site. The Interview section has only two stories, both of which are from other sources - yabiladi.com and the Vancouver Observer. What is more disturbing is that, although credit is given to other sites, there are no links to the source of the material.

According to the press release, the Morocco Mirror team "constitutes of highly qualified journalists and translators who enjoy a long experience in this field. Some of them used to work with Morocco Times. They are scattered in different Moroccan cities to guarantee a broad coverage of events. The majority are based in Casablanca and Agadir."

The team at The View from Fez welcomes Morocco Mirror and wishes them well. We will be following their progress with interest. You will find them here: MOROCCO MIRROR

Editor's note: The View from Fez started in 2005 and has just passed 2,000,000 page views.

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Mysterious Deaths in Essaouira

The UK newspaper, The Times, is reporting a very strange and tragic event in Morocco. According to the story, by Simon de Bruxelles, a man and his wife died just four days apart. Both died from falls. However, there are many unanswered questions.

The couple, Roger and Tilly Lamb were originally from Pershore, Worcestershire and had been on holiday with their sons aged 9 to 16. The now orphaned children have been flown back to Britain and are now being cared for by a relative.

Reports from Morocco suggest that Mrs Lamb, 44, was badly injured in a 60ft (18m) fall from the balcony of their rented apartment in the resort of Essaouira on Wednesday night last week. She died in intensive care at the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah Essaouira provincial hospital on Saturday.

The following day, her grief-stricken husband is reported to have jumped from the second floor of the Sofitel Hotel in Essaouira. He was transferred to a specialist hospital 250 miles (402km) away in Marrakesh where he died on Sunday night.

News of the tragedy has shocked friends and neighbours in Worcestershire and colleagues of Mr Lamb’s in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he had been working for the past year. The circumstances of the death are still being investigated by the Foreign Office as initial reports suggested Mrs Lamb had been injured while hiking with her husband and he had slipped trying to help her.

Friends said Mrs Lamb and the four boys had been planing to join Mr Lamb in New Zealand but were still living in the family home in Pensham near Pershore at the time of their deaths.

Roger Lamb is said to have overwhelmed by grief following his wife's death 

Mr Lamb, a University of Birmingham graduate, had recently been involved in the rebuilding of the New Zealand city of Christchurch after the earthquake in February. In his online CV,he described his interests as ‘’Family, fell running and horses’’. Since moving to New Zealand he had joined a local running club and had been looking for a home for his family.

West Mercia Police said the deaths had been reported to the coroner who had yet to set a date for the inquests. A spokesman said: ‘’West Mercia Police were made aware of this incident this week. Officers from south Worcestershire made some initial inquiries but the matter is now with the coroner for Wiltshire and the Foreign Commonwealth Office.’’

A new call for English language media voices in Morocco

"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.

Moroccan Press Needs an Effective Newspaper in English

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.

Morocco Needs English Media Voice

The Obituary for the Morocco Times.

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.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Morocco needs a media voice in English.

"THE VIEW FROM FEZ (TVFZ) est plus qu’un blog : un vrai portail anglophone marocain. Aussi incroyable que cela puisse paraître, depuis l’arrêt de Morocco Times, TVFZ est le seul site marocain rendant compte de l’actualité du Royaume en langue anglaise. Ce blog collaboratif est un bon espoir qui fera sûrement parler de lui dans le futur." - Le magazine des blogs au Maroc *Translation at foot of post

One thing is very clear in the Moroccan media at the moment and that is that the Moroccan Communication minister, Nabil Benabdellah, is pressing ahead with reforms and is to be congratulated on his progress. The minister has been working hard for several years now and media watchers will recall that back in 2005, almost 6 million USD was allotted to several press organs, and reforms included putting an end to the State monopoly on the Broadcasting sector and establishing the High Authority of Communication and Broadcasting (HACA).

On Thursday, the minister announced that the new Press Code will provide for the lifting of several liberty deprivation provisions. The new code "will grant more freedom of expression," Benabdallah said at a conference themed "Communication and reform in Morocco", stressing that it will also raise the issue of press ethics.

As for the press sector evolution, the ministerl noted that a body dubbed the National Press Council will be created to tackle the ethics issue, recalling that Morocco has implemented a support policy to back up the written press.

Urgent attention to English is needed

However, one area that needs urgent attention is the lack of an effective English language portal on the internet and in print. The days when English was of secondary importance to Morocco are long gone and in business, tourism and particularly property, English news and information is in high demand.

For almost two years the Morocco Times tried valiantly to fill the gap, but is now gone. The reasons for its demise need to be examined and a new online presence established that builds on what Morocco Times began but includes a sense of fun, gossip as well as news and information.

For the last few days The View from Fez has been analyzing web traffic relating to Morocco in English and the results are what we expected - a huge demand for information in English.

We took the statistics for the last 100,000 page views and discovered that 25.86% of visitors came from the USA and 20.13% from Great Britain. Next in descending order were Morocco, France, Australia, Canada and Ireland.

75% of readers from all countries use English as their primary computer language, followed by French, 14%, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Japanese.

How do people discover Morocco?

In the info-search world, Google reigns supreme. 54% of all visitors find information on Morocco by using Google, 4 percent use other search engines such as Yahoo or MSN. 7% are referred to us by other English language sites. The remaining visitors use no search engine but come directly to the site. Returning visitors make up 30% of our readers and the returnees spend longer reading more articles on their subsequent visits.

Although The View from Fez has a translation facility so that non-English speaking readers can access information or stories, in the last 100,000 page views only 60 were translated.

So? What does all this tell us?

The answer is a simple one: An English language news portal is needed.

And we are not the only's saying this: "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

Minister Benabdallah, over to you.

Further reading: The Obituary for the Morocco Times.


*translation of the The Magazine of Moroccan Blogs quote:

The View From Fez is more than a blog: it's a truly anglophone Moroccan portal. And most remarkably, since the demise of the Morocco Times, TVFZ is the only Moroccan site providing news about the Kingdom in English. This collaborative blog has great promise that will surely be talked about in the future.


Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news