Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP)

Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) is Morocco’s state news agency, tasked with producing and distributing official news at home and abroad. It was founded on 31 May 1959 by a group of Moroccan nationalists led by Mehdi Bennouna, initially as a private limited company. Its news service was formally inaugurated on 18 November 1959 with a message from King Mohammed V that became the agency’s motto: “the news is sacred, comment is free.” The state progressively took over the agency in the 1970s.

MAP is Morocco’s primary institutional news provider, producing and syndicating news for public broadcasters, government bodies, media outlets and international partners. It provides news services in Arabic, French, English, Spanish and Tamazight/Amazigh, and operates through a network of domestic bureaus and foreign correspondents.

Over the years, MAP has expanded well beyond a traditional wire service. It now operates the 24-hour television news channel M24, the radio service RIM Radio, daily publications including Maroc Le Jour in French and Al Yaoum Al Maghribi in Arabic, and additional magazines, notebooks, yearbooks and thematic products. It also maintains a growing range of digital news services and specialised portals, including services focused on sport, the economy, tourism and regional affairs.

Media assets

News agency: MAP wire service, including multilingual national and international news.

Print and publications: Maroc Le Jour; Al Yaoum Al Maghribi; Bab Magazine; MAP notebooks, yearbooks and thematic publications.

Television: M24, 24-hour news channel.

Radio: RIM

Ownership and governance

MAP is a public institution under state tutelage and the authority of the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication. MAP was created as a public establishment by Dahir No. 1-75-235 of 19 September 1977 and later reorganised under Law No. 02-15, promulgated by Dahir No. 1-18-22 of 12 April 2018.The 2018 law confirms that MAP remains a public establishment with legal personality and financial autonomy, subject to state tutelage and public financial control.

Under Moroccan law, MAP’s highest governing body is its Administrative Council, formally chaired by the Head of Government, with this role often exercised by the minister responsible for communication. The 39th session of the Administrative Council, held in December 2024, was chaired by the Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, and approved the agency’s 2025 budget and action plan as well as its 2023 moral and financial reports. The director-general reports to and implements the strategic orientations of this governance structure.

In May 2023, King Mohammed VI appointed Fouad Arif as director-general of MAP, on the proposal of the Head of Government and the Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, following the death in April 2023 of Khalil Hachimi Idrissi, who had led the agency since 2011. Arif joined MAP in 1994 and rose through the agency, heading its Paris and Washington bureaus and directing its North America pole. He also served as an adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2019. He remained director-general as of mid-2026.

Source of funding and budget

MAP no longer releases detailed public financial reports. Available information and expert interviews conducted by SMM in May 2024 indicate that the agency receives more than half of its funding directly from the state, supplemented by subscription revenue and income from publications, audiovisual products and digital services.

Earlier SMM-held material placed MAP’s budget in the low hundreds of millions of dirhams, with the most recent figure available to SMM from earlier cycles around MAD 318 million in 2021. Because MAP has not published detailed current accounts, this figure should be treated as a historical reference rather than a current audited budget. Subsequent estimates suggest that the agency’s budget has remained broadly stable, while expanded digital and audiovisual activity has been financed mainly through internal reallocation rather than major external funding increases. MAP’s predominant reliance on public funding is a core feature of its state-controlled status.

Editorial independence

MAP operates as the official voice of the Moroccan state. Its core mandate is to promote and disseminate state policies and narratives at home and abroad. Content analysis conducted for SMM in May 2023 and repeated in March-April 2024 and March 2025 found that MAP’s reporting consistently follows a pro-government editorial line, particularly in political and foreign-affairs coverage. This is evident in story selection, framing and tone, with little or no critical scrutiny of state institutions or actors. Coverage of Western Sahara and the monarchy adheres closely to official positions.

MAP has codified its operations through internal rulebooks, including an Ethical Charter and a Charter on the Use of Information Resources. These function as internal operational guidelines rather than enforceable protections of editorial freedom, and they establish no independent mechanism for pluralism, editorial autonomy or public accountability. The agency maintains a mediator to handle audience feedback and complaints, consult newsroom staff and submit summaries to management, but the role lacks structural independence and answers within MAP’s own hierarchy. This limits its capacity to act as an independent ombudsman or safeguard journalistic standards.

AI and digital policy

MAP has continued to expand its digital and audiovisual footprint through the M24 news channel, RIM Radio, the multilingual map.ma portal and specialised news services. It has also engaged with artificial intelligence as a theme in the international events, partnerships and policy debates it covers and convenes. SMM did not, however, identify any published MAP framework governing the use of AI in editorial production, verification, attribution, recommendation systems, audience analytics, synthetic-media labelling, content disclosure, bias mitigation or human editorial oversight. Its digital development is oriented toward distribution, multilingual reach and audiovisual expansion rather than disclosed editorial-technology governance.

Classification rationale

MAP is classified as State-Controlled (SC), a classification maintained from prior SMM cycles and unchanged for 2026. It is a public institution within the state apparatus: it operates under the supervising ministry, is governed through a state-led Administrative Council, its director-general is appointed by the King, and more than half of its funding comes directly from the state. Its editorial output is, by mandate and in practice, the official voice of the Moroccan state, with no statutory or oversight safeguard for editorial autonomy. All three determinants of the State Media Matrix, ownership, funding and editorial control, point unambiguously to the state. MAP therefore remains firmly in the SC category.

June 2026