Moroccan Journalists During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Media

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists all over the world were tasked with the mission of disseminating information and providing answers to the public opinion. This paper aims at exploring the challenges that have influenced Moroccan journalists using a comparative study. Through a thematic analysis of N=30 interviews with journalists from public and private media, this study aims to study the differences in the challenges during the coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study identified five main themes. Challenges related to (1) the information overload and (2) organizational issues were commonly shared across the two groups. Nevertheless, (3) limitations on press freedom, (4) psychological and emotional stress, and (5) difficulties in accessing to governmental informations were expressed more by private media journalists. These results emphasize on the need for structural changes in the Moroccan media landscape by highlighting disparities between public and private media that influence the quality of the media coverage in times of crisis.