Outlet profile

Hespress

Moroccan nationalist / broadly pro-establishment

Owned byOwned by Marocads SARL, a limited liability company whose sole shareholders are brothers Hassan El Guennouni (general director) and Amin El Guennouni (director of publication)

FundingPrimarily online advertising revenue

On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Hespress was founded in 2007 by Hassan and Amin El Guennouni and quickly became a pioneer of Arabic-language online journalism in Morocco. In its early years it took an independent, at times adversarial stance: it became the first Moroccan Arabic-language outlet to publish a caricature of King Mohammed VI, and the arrest of a regular contributor, Mohamed Erraji, for a column critical of the monarchy drew international attention and sharply increased the site's traffic. Academic research notes, however, that Hespress significantly shifted its editorial line within a few years, moving away from the confrontational posture of its founding period toward a broader, more establishment-friendly approach. Today it is the dominant digital news brand in Morocco, with roughly 45% weekly readership reach according to Reuters Institute data, and it is consistently ranked among the most-trusted news sources in the country. The outlet is structured as a private commercial enterprise funded by digital advertising, with no disclosed state equity stake, though critics have noted the broader pattern of large Moroccan online outlets becoming less oppositional over time. Its coverage of U.S.-Morocco relations under Trump's second term has been strongly positive, tracking developments such as Trump's reaffirmation of U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, Secretary Rubio's praise of King Mohammed VI, and Morocco's decision to name a major highway after Donald Trump.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-08-02; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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