Emirates News Agency (WAM)

Founded in 1976, the Emirates News Agency, known by its Arabic acronym WAM (Wakalat Anba’a al Emarat), is the official state news agency of the United Arab Emirates. It has long served as the principal conduit for government-approved news, domestically and in its international dispatches, and provides content in Arabic, English and a wide range of other languages as part of the UAE’s public-diplomacy strategy.

Media assets

News agency: WAM

Ownership and governance

WAM is a federal state news agency. Historically it operated under the UAE’s federal media governance system, including the National Media Council and later the UAE Media Council and National Media Office structures. Under the 2025 restructuring, WAM now operates within the National Media Authority rather than as a standalone federal agency, while continuing to function as the UAE’s official news service.

The National Media Authority is a federal public authority affiliated with the Cabinet, with legal personality and financial and administrative independence. Its mandate includes proposing the UAE’s strategic media orientations and public media messages, coordinating media policies across federal and local entities, unifying the UAE’s media discourse domestically and internationally, monitoring printed, published and broadcast media content, preparing and assessing the national media narrative, accrediting foreign media representatives, and developing WAM as the official national channel for publishing, distributing and translating approved official state news.

The NMA is chaired by Abdulla bin Mohammed bin Butti Al Hamed, with Mohammed Saeed Al Shehhi as Vice Chairman. In January 2026, Dr Jamal Mohammed Obaid Al Kaabi was appointed Secretary-General of the National Media Authority with the rank of Ministry Under-Secretary. The decree-law provides that directors-general of the authority’s main sectors are appointed by federal decree on the proposal of the chairman and report to the Secretary-General.

WAM had previously been led by Director-General Mohammed Jalal Al Rayssi. Following the 2025/26 consolidation into the NMA, SMM treats WAM’s post-restructuring agency-level leadership arrangements cautiously pending confirmation of the current sector-level governance. WAM remains formally embedded in the federal state media architecture, and beyond news production it functions as an instrument of soft power used to shape international perceptions of the UAE’s leadership, foreign policy and development model.

Source of funding and budget

WAM’s funding now sits within the National Media Authority structure. The NMA’s legal framework provides for annual financial appropriations from the UAE state budget, accepted donations, grants and other resources generated through the authority’s competences. The decree-law also transfers the assets, properties, contracts, rights, obligations, appropriations, allocations and financial budgets of WAM, the UAE Media Council and the National Media Office to the NMA.

WAM may generate limited revenue from licensing, syndication, partnerships or other services, but the agency’s core operations are sustained through public resources. Precise agency-specific figures are not disclosed, and neither WAM nor the NMA publishes detailed public accounts for WAM as a separate news agency. Based on SMM-retained interviews with journalists and UAE media observers, state funding remains critical to sustaining the agency’s operations.

Editorial independence

WAM’s editorial output closely mirrors the messaging priorities of the Emirati state. As a federal government news agency now operating within the National Media Authority, its reporting is neither autonomous nor independently overseen. Coverage is heavily weighted toward government initiatives, official decrees, state visits, diplomatic statements, economic development, national branding and UAE foreign-policy narratives, with minimal space for dissenting voices, civil-society perspectives or investigative scrutiny.

No statutory framework, external audit mechanism or independent editorial-oversight body exists to safeguard WAM’s journalistic independence or hold it to account. The consolidation into a Cabinet-affiliated authority reinforces central direction rather than loosening it. The broader UAE federal framework of media, cybercrime and online-content legislation further constrains independent and critical journalism. WAM’s editorial line remains closely aligned with government narratives, making it an exemplar of state-run media in a tightly regulated environment.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no evidence that WAM has published a dedicated public AI governance or editorial-use policy as of mid-2026.

The agency has invested in multimedia and digital capabilities, multilingual distribution, international news-exchange partnerships and official digital dissemination. The new NMA framework also gives the authority responsibilities related to digital media regulation, media-content standards, monitoring of media content, early detection of digital-media threats and disinformation, and the development of WAM as the official channel for publication, distribution and translation of approved official state news.

Classification rationale

WAM is classified State-Controlled (SC), a classification maintained from prior SMM cycles. It is the UAE’s official state news agency, founded and funded by the federal state, with editorial output aligned to official positions and no independent regulator or statutory safeguard for its autonomy. The 2025/26 consolidation of WAM into the National Media Authority, a federal public entity affiliated directly with the Cabinet, places the agency even more explicitly within the federal government’s media architecture. These determinants keep WAM firmly in the SC category for the 2026 cycle.

June 2026