At the beginning of its proceedings, held in the presence of MAP Director General, Khalil Hachimi Idrissi, members of the Board and the ombudsman of MAP, Driss Ajbali, the Board approved the moral and financial reports of the Agency for the year 2021, in addition to the report of the ombudsman.
Speaking on this occasion, Bensaid praised the professional work of MAP journalists both nationally and internationally, noting that the work of these journalists deserves encouragement and support.
Noting some remarks of a legal nature concerning RIM-Radio and M24, the television of continuous information of MAP, he pleaded for a consultation with the various departments and actors concerned to regularize this situation.
For his part, MAP DG emphasized the transformation that the Agency has experienced in recent years, including the launch of M24 and RIM-Radio, highlighting the specificities and scope of MAP.
Hachimi Idrissi stressed, in this sense, that “MAP, a wholesaler of information, has become in recent years a multimedia group with diversified products”.
“It is now a public press group that we are building together with the Board of Directors for eight years to install new media,” he said, noting that “we went from a news agency with a single product, namely the news article, to a public information pole that covers several market segments”.
“This pole of information is intended to be the spearhead of Morocco internationally and nationally,” said Hachimi Idrissi, who thanked in this context the members of the Board of Directors “for their commitment and their permanent presence” at the side of the Agency, which has made a real transformation over the past twelve years by successfully completing its digital transformation, amending its organizational chart, creating a modern law, an example today at the institutional level, and reallocating its resources without costing more to the state budget.
For his part, Secretary General of MAP, Rachid Boumhil, reviewed the important achievements of the Agency during the year 2021, stressing that MAP has settled permanently in its status as a public information pole by continuing to enrich its environment with a range of products and trades.
He cited among the 2021 achievements of MAP, the publications “Verbatim” in four languages, a collection of quotes of HM King Mohammed VI, and “A certain history of Morocco 1959-2020”, the launch of MAP Data and “MAP LAB”, live broadcast on M24 and RIM Radio and the launch of several thematic music radio stations.
Regarding the production of news, it reached a new record of 290,000 news articles, up 6% compared to 2020, or an average productivity of 7.51 Units per journalist per day, respecting the diversity in production, which tends to an increasingly balanced distribution, with a clear improvement in the coverage of national news, which represents 70% of production.
Concerning the overall audience index, Boumhil said that the “User Centric” strategy launched by MAP in 2019 is beginning to produce the expected results, noting that the presence of MAP on the web recorded about 8 million visits in 2021, with 16 million pages visited.
Boumhil said MAP’s ambition is to capitalize on its successes to rise to the rank of a Global Agency in 2023, a year in which MAP plans to make its media the spearhead to increase its overall audience index.
“The current status of MAP requires a new reflection on the process of production and dissemination of the information asset,” said Boumhil.
The meeting of MAP Board of Directors was also marked by the speech of the ombudsman of the Agency, Driss Ajbali, who presented his 2020-2022 report and announced the launch of the website of MAP ombudsman.
Available on the address lemedialogue.map.ma, this portal is a means to make contact with the ombudsman of MAP accessible to the greatest number, not only in Morocco but also abroad, where both the network of MAP agents and the Moroccans of the world can be found.
