The 2025 CAN and the narrative void in the Moroccan media

Rather, they were a revealing moment in a deeper conflict: a dispute over image, meaning, and narrative. It was not a battle of goals and passes, but a battle for consciousness, fought with words rather than legs, with discourse rather than results. And yet, at a time when maximum preparedness was expected, the Moroccan media appeared disoriented, defensive, and hesitant, as if facing a symbolic hurricane with a paper umbrella.

This fragility was not born in the stands of CAN 2025; it was quietly brewing over the years, when the media was emptied of its cultural spirit and transformed into a market open to banality. When the trained journalist was replaced by the ephemeral “influencer,” in-depth analysis by immediate noise, and critical questioning by the trend of the moment.

The tournament did not create the crisis, but it exposed it, like a mirror revealing the wrinkles of a consciousness that aged before it matured.

The target was not the Moroccan team, but the image of Morocco as a civilizing option in a turbulent environment; as a model of stability amid regional chaos; as a state that has accumulated diplomatic and geopolitical capital that makes many uncomfortable.

However, the media response was not up to the challenge, because the tools available were not designed for this type of confrontation. How can a media system devoid of intellectuals and loaded with fast-consumption faces wage a war of narratives against professional, combative media outlets with explicit political agendas?

Journalism is not just about transmitting news: it is about building awareness, crafting a narrative, and safeguarding the image of the state in the collective imagination. When it is reduced to an echo of trends or a space for sterile disputes, it abdicates its strategic function.

The public media, called upon to be the symbolic arm of the state in the defense of its intangible interests, seemed to limit themselves to cold administrative compliance: without vision, without depth, without persuasive discourse.

More dangerous than the attack is the absence of an intelligent response: one that disarms the adverse discourse instead of merely lamenting it; one that turns hostility into a matter of analysis and not a cause for confusion. A media outlet without an intellectual project cannot sustain a position; a media outlet that does not invest in reason will remain a prisoner of instinct.

From professional observation and daily experience with a media discourse that shies away from fundamental questions in favor of superficial excitement, a long-delayed question arises: is there really a political will to restructure the sector?Not technical fixes or cosmetic changes, but a profound project that restores the place of the cultivated journalist, the capable analyst, the discourse that combines audacity and knowledge, patriotism and criticism, defense of the image of the state without falling into empty propaganda.

The problem is not a shortage of platforms, but the nature of the dominant discourse. Banalities did not impose themselves by force; the door was opened to them in the name of “audiences” and “engagement.”

Thus, the media became a mirror of social superficiality rather than an instrument for educating it. We have a voice, but we have lost our language. We have platforms, but we lack meaning.

The most painful paradox is that Morocco has serious media outlets with a professional and analytical approach that survive on the margins without institutional support, without equitable advertising or economic protection, because they do not master the language of spectacle or the trade of banality.

They work driven by the conviction that journalism is a mission and not a commodity, but they are left to compete alone in an unequal market where the winner is the one who shouts the loudest, not the one who thinks the best.

In an era where information has become a weapon, the state cannot remain neutral in the battle for consciousness. Supporting serious journalism is not a privilege, but a strategic necessity.

Investing in trained journalists is not a luxury, but a guarantee of symbolic security. 

States are not measured solely by their military or economic power, but by their ability to protect their image, articulate their narrative, and command respect in the global public sphere.

The 2025 CAN was not just a tournament; it was a test for the media system. And it made it clear that the fault lies not with the event, but with the structure.

We do not suffer from a lack of media, but from a lack of vision; not from a shortage of voices, but from an absence of meaning.

The real question is not: who attacked Morocco?

But rather: why were we not prepared to respond as we should have?

Because journalism without a cultural project does not fight civilizational battles.

And journalism that compromises with banality is incapable of defending a state that accumulates achievements.

Journalism that remains silent when it should speak out does not protect the nation: it leaves its image exposed, naked, at the mercy of hostility.