Rabat – “Reliable reporting.” “Balanced perspective.” “Independent voice.” These are phrases media outlets often use to describe themselves. For Morocco World News (MWN), staying true to these principles has been a 14-year journey marked by both monumental triumphs and daunting challenges.
Born in a small New York apartment in 2011, MWN today celebrates its 14th anniversary as Morocco’s first English-language news source. The outlet has transformed from a modest startup into a leading digital platform for English speakers seeking authentic Moroccan perspectives.
Founded by two brothers, Samir and Adnane Bennis, MWN emerged to fill a critical gap in the media landscape. When they launched the platform, no local English-language news outlets were producing content on and from Morocco. The brothers knew that the road ahead would be challenging, but it was necessary.
Challenging the echo chamber
Their timing was particularly crucial — amid the tumultuous Arab Spring, when Western media outlets were crafting simplistic narratives about the region, often distorting complex realities and applying one-size-fits-all analyses to distinctly different national contexts.
These outlets strategically exploited the regional upheaval to advance predetermined framings and foreign policy objectives, seizing on chaos to reinforce orientalist stereotypes while sidelining local voices and alternative lenses.
“When my brother Adnane and I first came up with the idea of launching an English-language news outlet focused on Morocco fourteen years ago, we faced numerous challenges,” says Samir Bennis. “To be honest, most people around us thought it was a whimsical, even crazy, idea, something doomed to fail.”
That skepticism didn’t deter the Bennis brothers. Their experience at the the United Nations and political circles in Washington provided them a unique vantage point on international diplomacy and Morocco’s pressing foreign policy concerns.
“Our professional background at the time, working at the United Nations and engaging with diplomats from around the world, gave us a unique, first-hand understanding of the complexities surrounding international diplomacy and the Sahara dispute,” Samir explains.
MWN’s mission expanded beyond simply reporting news. The outlet positioned itself as a vital counterbalance to Western media narratives about Morocco.
“MWN was a trailblazer, not only for offering a fresh and alternative perspective to the often biased and reductive narratives found in Western media coverage of Morocco, but also for providing Moroccan readers interested in foreign affairs with insightful, well-documented, and fact-based analysis,” Samir notes.
Western Sahara: MWN’s uncompromising focus
The Western Sahara question has remained the bedrock of MWN’s strategic coverage. With unwavering commitment, the outlet has peeled back the layers of obfuscation surrounding this artificial dispute born of Cold War geopolitics and sustained by outdated separatist agendas.
It has also worked tirelessly to expose the deliberate attempts by certain foreign actors to undermine Morocco’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Through in-depth analyses and on-the-ground reporting, MWN has laid bare the calculated diplomatic maneuvers — often cloaked in neutrality — that seek to distort the historical and legal realities of a non-negotiable territory that lies at the heart of Morocco’s national identity.
In a landscape riddled with disinformation and geopolitical posturing, the English-language outlet has consistently provided readers with clarity, context, and a firm defense of Morocco’s legitimate and rightful position, illuminating the high-stakes chessboard of international diplomacy where the country’s national cause is too often misrepresented or ignored.
“MWN not only helped open the eyes of many Moroccans to the ongoing debates at the Security Council, but also played a key role in deepening public understanding of the dynamics within the UN system through its regular, in-depth coverage and analysis,” Samir states.
The news outlet now maintains three offices: in Rabat, Fez, and Washington, DC. It has also cultivated an exceptional team over the years. More than 70% of its journalists are young Moroccan women. The outlet’s diverse staff includes members from Morocco, Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Meanwhile, the platform’s meteoric growth is reflected in its impressive readership numbers. Between 2018 and 2023 alone, MWN served over 25.7 million readers who consumed a staggering 71.3 million articles.
The price of telling the truth
MWN’s pursuit of independent journalism has come at a high cost, met with relentless and sustained pressure. The outlet recently faced brutal censorship on Instagram, where its account with nearly 350,000 followers — built painstakingly since 2014 — was permanently suspended by Meta. The unilateral, punitive decision erased a decade of community-building and faithful reporting overnight.
“The fact that we have been censored by a platform that purports to defend human rights and freedom of expression is very telling,” says Adnane Bennis, CEO of MWN. “It really saddens me to see that Meta, which ironically speaks a lot about freedom, is censoring Morocco World News, an independent platform, only because we were telling the truth.”
This censorship exemplifies how platforms that claim to champion free expression often become battlegrounds where narratives challenging dominant Western perspectives on the region are systematically silenced. The Middle East, North Africa, and the broader Global South remain fertile ground for propaganda and information manipulation by Western tech conglomerates for their own gain.
“We are not censored in Rabat or Africa, we are censored in California, in the Silicon Valley,” Bennis emphasizes. “The principles of the United States, which are to defend human rights and freedom of speech, are really being breached by the tech giants, especially Meta, which is just suspending any accounts that do not fit their narratives.”
What concerns Adnane most is the lack of digital sovereignty. “What’s even more sad and alarming is the fact that the MENA region, Africa in general, and the Middle East, do not have any digital sovereignty. Because to see that platforms like Meta and others can just wipe out your account, wipe out your existence, just because we happen to disagree on ideas or situations, is very, very alarming.”
Despite these obstacles, MWN continues its mandate of delivering English-language news about Morocco through an authentically Moroccan lens. The outlet holds fast to its commitment to presenting factual, balanced coverage across politics, economics, and culture — alongside an expanding focus on lifestyle, marked by the launch of its official lifestyle website in 2024.
“Fourteen years later, I am proud to see Morocco World News grow into one of the leading media platforms, widely recognized as a trusted source of news and analysis for both Moroccans and international readers,” Samir reflects.
The flourishing proliferation of other English-language news outlets in Morocco in recent years vindicates the visionary foresight of MWN’s founders. What was once dismissed as an outlandish idea has become an essential current in the country’s media sphere.
As it enters its fifteenth year, MWN continues to stand by its founding principles: providing reliable news, reflecting Morocco’s perspective, and offering a platform for diverse voices within the country and its diaspora.
“We remain faithful to our principles, which are to defend our narrative. We defy the stereotypes against us,” Adnane declares. “We remain faithful to our morals because we have a moral duty in front of our readers and in front of history.”
“Unfortunately, instead of celebrating our 14 years of existence, resilience, and sustainability, we now find ourselves informing our readers that one of Silicon Valley’s giants has censored our voice and destroyed one of the key windows through which we spoke to the world,” Adnane concludes.
