13-05-2025
HACA Pushes for Ethical, More Balanced Portrayal of Women in Moroccan News Media
Rabat – Morocco's High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HACA) has taken a new step toward subverting outdated portrayals of women in news content.
On April 29, the institution released a short awareness video on the representation of women in Moroccan news, exploring issues of civic equality and democratic inclusion that still stubbornly persist.
Presented during a workshop in Rabat, the video forms part of HACA's broader effort to reshape the way women appear across TV, radio, and other online platforms in Morocco.
More than just a campaign, the initiative poses an urgent question: Why do Moroccan newsrooms still struggle to fully embrace the country's diverse female voices?
The event brought together a wide mix of actors and stakeholders, from members of HACA's governing council to parliamentarians, human rights advocates, government officials, and editors from public and private broadcasters.
Journalists sat next to civil society activists and digital specialists to ponder the same problem: how to break the persistent patterns that either erase women from the news or box them into reductive, symbolic roles.
Those around the table agreed: news is not neutral. When women appear less often, or only in limited contexts, the media helps reinforce outdated norms. That silence carries consequences, not just for individual women, but for democratic life as a whole.
A free pass cannot fully serve its public if it does not reflect it.
Time to change who tells the news
In his opening remarks, HACA Director General Benaissa Asloun invited participants to think about how the media shapes public thinking. He pointed out that small shifts in editorial decisions could lead to broader change, especially as Morocco continues its debate over reforming the Family Code.
HACA President Latifa Akharbach provided more concrete evidence. Drawing on the institution's participation in the Global Media Monitoring Project, she shared data that exposed deep imbalances in who appears on screen and how stories are framed.
She noted that women's voices often disappear in stories of political and economic relevance, while men continue to dominate expert commentary.
For Akharbach, the new video is part of a long-term strategy to ground media regulation in human rights. By circulating the video on social media, HACA hopes to reach audiences beyond formal institutions and invite the public to take part in rethinking the role of women in media.
The conversations at the workshop did not aim to assign blame but to build common ground. Everyone present recognized that more inclusive reporting does not come from checklists of slogans, but begins with awareness, intention, and a willingness to listen.
Still no women at the top
A 2025 study led by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Oxford University notes a persistent gender imbalance at the highest levels of news leadership.
Analyzing 240 major news outlets, online and offline, across 12 countries on five continents, researchers found that only 27% of the 171 top editors are women.
This stands in sharp contrast to the broader workforce, where women make up roughly 40% of journalists. Even among newly appointed editors in 2024 and 2025, women accounted for just 27%, a marginal increase from the 24% reported in 2024.
The findings point to the disheartening global trend that men continue to dominate editorial leadership, even in countries where women represent the majority of working journalists.
Representation varies widely, from a meager 7% in South Korea to a relatively higher 46% in the UK. The research underlines entrenched dynamics within the media industry itself, where internal structures and career progression paths remain largely unyielding to gender parity.
Despite years of data, debate, and awareness campaigns, the leadership gap remains stubbornly wide. The question is no longer whether women belong in top editorial roles, but when the industry will finally act on what it already knows.
How much longer must these conversations circle before real structural change takes root, and when will women's inclusion stop being a goal and start becoming a norm?
