Out of the 84 media institutions assessed in this year’s report, only three are considered to maintain editorial independence: the Israeli public broadcasters IPBC and Galatz, and Sky News Arabia, a joint venture between the UK-based Sky Group and the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), a firm linked to the Emirati royal family.

However, the situation appears to be deteriorating further. Two of the region’s few independent outlets—IPBC and Galatz—are facing mounting political pressure amid the escalating conflict in Gaza. The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has come under heightened international scrutiny, particularly from the UK, Canada, and several European states, which have signalled their support for recognising Palestinian statehood. In this context, Netanyahu’s administration has intensified its efforts to undermine the editorial independence of Israel’s public broadcasters.

In March 2024, the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, passed a new regulation empowering a government-appointed committee to scrutinize IPBC’s financial records and banning the organisation from producing films and documentaries. The move is widely seen as a means to coerce journalists into toeing the official line under threat of budget cuts. Similarly, officials have exerted pressure on Galatz, an IDF-run radio network, to adopt more government-friendly narratives in its coverage of the Gaza conflict. Nonetheless, both outlets have, thus far, held the line, demonstrating notable journalistic resilience. Their resistance has warranted their continued classification under the “Independent State-Funded and State-Managed” (ISFM) category in our typology.

In Iran, the last vestiges of editorial autonomy were effectively extinguished in 2025 when ISNA, the country’s only remaining semi-independent outlet, was brought entirely under state control, largely in response to its extensive reporting on Gaza. This development marks the final consolidation of Iran’s media environment under state dominance. The government’s tightening grip is further evidenced by the 2025 national budget, which dramatically increased allocations for state propaganda and ideological messaging.

Amid this bleak regional outlook, a few green shoots of reform have nonetheless emerged. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in December 2024 has sparked cautious optimism about the future of Syrian public media. The newly installed administration, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, appointed Hamza al-Mustafa, a figure with a reputation for independence and experience in media management, as Minister of Information. Furthermore, investigations have been launched into historic financial mismanagement at the Syrian Arab Publishing and Distributing Company and the Al Wahda Foundation, two of Syria’s major state-run media conglomerates. Whether these initial steps will translate into genuine liberalization of Syria’s long-captive media sector remains to be seen.

In conclusion, the public media landscape in the MENA region remains largely bleak, with no substantive improvement, and, in many cases, further deterioration, observed over the past year. Tight state control, opaque governance, and punitive censorship continue to define the region’s media ecology. Barring sweeping structural reforms, these trends are expected to persist in the immediate future.

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The MENA region is also home to a significant number of media outlets that are subject to government influence. Our research indicates that 33% of media outlets in the region, whether public or private, are influenced by the government in some way.

The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which led to a war between Iran and Israel that began in the early days of October 2024, has prompted governments to further intensify their control over state and public media outlets in order to disseminate their own ideologies and advance their respective agendas. The conflict is likely to exacerbate the challenges facing the media, leading to further fragmentation, instrumentalization, and state influence in a region that is already home to several failed states, including Yemen, Syria, and Libya. In these contexts, media outlets face significant hurdles in operating independently.

The ongoing conflict and local factors, including repeated attempts to politicize the media, are likely to present a series of new challenges for the few editorially independent state media outlets in the region. One outlet facing such dangers is IPBC in Israel.

The MENA region continues to exhibit significant contrasts with regard to media developments. On the one hand, a number of state- and publicly-owned media outlets are facing severe financial challenges, which are posing significant hurdles to their operations (e.g., Télé-Liban). Conversely, the affluent Arab nations of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been increasing their media spending as a means of enhancing their regional and international influence.

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The MENA region has also witnessed a significant rise in the number of captured media outlets, as revealed by our State Media Matrix. About 36% of all outlets in the region can now be classified as either privately or publicly captured. This marks a notable increase from 24% in 2021 and 33% in 2022. The spike can be attributed to changes in our methodology, which impacted media entities in Algeria, Iran, and Morocco, as well as the emergence of fresh instances of captured media.

The proportion of state and public media companies with editorial independence is thus very low, these companies now representing a mere 4% of the total, a significant drop from the 13% recorded in 2021.

Amidst the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has sparked turbulence in the Middle East, it is anticipated that state and public media in the region will face even more scrutiny. Governments will seek to exert greater control over these media outlets in order to disseminate their own ideologies and advance their respective agendas. 

The absence of political stability has already had a profound impact on the editorial autonomy of numerous media organizations, causing significant harm. State media in failed states within the region, such as Yemen, Syria, and Libya, face immense challenges in operating independently. Even researching these media outlets has become challenging in these countries, as a multitude of entities, including political factions and warlords, assert their authority. In our database, we have included media establishments controlled by several parties involved in conflicts in Yemen and Libya, for example. 

On the other hand, there is a growing concern that even media outlets that have previously safeguarded their editorial independence will face mounting challenges. Despite the government’s inability to influence the editorial decision-making at the public broadcaster IPBC in Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there have been discussions in recent years about the possibility of completely shutting down IPBC.

In a similar vein to other regions across the globe, state and public media outlets in some countries in the MENA region are grappling with mounting financial challenges. This was the reason why the Lebanese authorities made the decision to shut down Télé-Leban in August 2023. The decision came after its employees staged a series of protests due to unpaid wages. 

In parallel, the MENA region has witnessed a significant surge in the establishment of a multitude of pan-Arabic and global media entities, a considerable number of these organizations being either financially supported or overseen by governmental bodies. Primarily originating from the affluent emirates of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, these media outlets are known for their production of high-quality programs. However, the majority of them remain under the influence of the authorities that finance them, which is why they rarely, if ever, venture into criticizing their respective country’s political leadership.

Finally, a trend that is expected to adversely affect editorial independence of state and public media in the region is the tendency of various governments to consolidate and centralize an increasing number of outlets. In Iran, the government is actively working towards merging the country’s media into a centralized entity. The primary motivation behind this move, according to media experts in Iran, is the government’s struggle with economic difficulties. As the main source of funding for pro-government media in the country, the consolidation would allow authorities to more effectively control these outlets. Meanwhile, in Morocco, the government is also taking steps towards creating a powerful media conglomerate by merging multiple media companies. As part of this effort, television channels 2M and Medi1TV, along with Medi1 Radio, have been placed under the country’s public broadcast group SNRT. These developments raise concerns about the potential impact on media independence and freedom of expression in the region.

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MENA also sports the highest incidence of captured outlets, according to our State Media Matrix, some 33% of all being either a private or public captured outlet. That is a significant jump from 24% in 2021, a result of both the changes in our methodology (that affected media entities in Algeria, Iran and Morocco), but also the appearance of new cases of captured media.For example, as predicted in the 2021 version of this study, the political crisis triggered by the resignation of the Tunisian prime minister in July 2021 had a significant impact on the independence of the media. Within the past year,  four state media companies in Tunisia lost independence following an introduction of “exceptional measures” by president Saied in July 2021, which had a significant influence on our sample.

Additionally, the Jordanian television broadcaster Al-Mamlaka lost its independent status, being relegated to the State Controlled (SC) typology after starting to follow a government-friendly editorial line and failing to cover controversial topics, such as the King’s conflict with a former Crown prince or Pandora Papers, an investigation that shed light on the King’s investments abroad.

At the same time, the number of independent state media companies in MENA decreased by six entities. They now make up only 4% of all state media companies in the region, down from 13% in 2021. The few exceptions include Israel where the state media enjoy some more editorial freedom, as well as isolated examples of outlets such as Sky News Arabia  in UAE and Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) in Iran. In Israel, the two state media companies, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) and Galatz, although under constant political pressures, are both independent, according to our matrix.

Overall, the MENA region is home to a few heavily state-controlled media systems, including Libya and Egypt in the Northern African region and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen and the Palestine Territories in the Middle East. In these countries, journalists are faced with numerous restrictions including laws that enable jailing critical journalists for spreading fake news, the most favorite pretext lately used by the governments in the region to lock up journalists. 

One key factor that influences the media in the region is the lack of stability. Even if they manage to protect their independence for a while, media companies are constantly at risk of falling under government control. Particularly in the region’s failed states (Yemen, Syria, Libya), state media are hardly able to operate independently. In these countries, it is even difficult to properly identify state media as numerous entities, including political factions and warlords, claim to be the legitimate state authorities. Indeed, for Yemen, our database now includes media outlets controlled by the Houthi government and the Presidential Leadership Council, resulting in four new entities in the sample. The Houthi-affiliated Supreme Political Council (SPC) was established in 2016 to represent the political party of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the interests of the Houthi Movement. The Presidential Leadership Council is the executive arm of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which was created in April 2022 in Riyadh with support from Saudi Arabia.

Finally, the MENA region has also seen the rapid growth of a cluster of pan-Arabic and global media players, many of which are funded or managed by governments. Most of them were founded in the region’s wealthy emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At the same time, Egypt has been also investing in the satellite television sector in its ambition to influence the region. Although these media outlets often produce high-quality news reporting, they remain in majority under the control of the authorities that fund them, rarely, if at all, daring to criticize their country’s political leadership.

The few exceptions include Tunisia and Israel where the state media enjoy some more editorial freedom. In Tunisia, the revolution in 2010-2011 led to significant media reforms and considerably more editorial freedom even for the state-owned Établissement de la télévision tunisienne (ETT), previously known as a tool of government propaganda. In Israel, the two state media companies, Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) and Galatz, although under constant political pressures, are both independent, according to our matrix.

At the same time, the MENA region is still home to a few heavily state-controlled media systems, including Libya and Egypt in the Northern African region and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen and the Palestine Territories in the Middle East. In these countries, journalists are faced with numerous restrictions including laws that enable jailing critical journalists for spreading fake news, the most favorite pretext lately used by the governments in the region to lock up journalists. Even in those countries with more independent state media, the overall media landscape is becoming more and more polarized. For example, the political crisis triggered by the resignation of the Tunisian prime minister in July 2021 is likely to have a significant impact on the independence of the media.

One key factor that influences the media in the region is the lack of stability. Even if they manage to protect their independence for a while, media companies are constantly at risk of falling under government control. Particularly in the region’s failed states (Yemen, Syria, Libya), state media are hardly able to operate independently. In these countries, it’s even difficult to properly identify state media as numerous entities, including political factions and warlords, declare themselves to be the highest state authorities.

Finally, the MENA region has also seen the rapid growth of a cluster of pan-Arabic and global media players, many of which are funded or managed by governments. Most of them were founded in the region’s wealthy emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At the same time, Egypt has been also investing in the satellite television sector in its ambition to influence the region. Although these media outlets often produce high-quality news reporting, they remain in majority under the control of the authorities that fund them, rarely, if at all, daring to criticize their country’s leadership.