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Donor Briefing No. 06  ·  Media & Publications  ·  2026

MEF Publications

The Newsroom: Observer, Middle East Quarterly, Dispatch, Insider

September 2026·Prepared for donors and foundations
One-Pager (Print / PDF) Discuss a Gift

The Forum runs a newsroom: the MEF Observer publishing 100-plus pieces a month in 2026, often within an hour of breaking news; the flagship Middle East Quarterly, edited by Jonathan Spyer; the MEF Dispatch reaching a 150,000-plus list; and the Middle East Insider daily brief, 16,000-plus subscribers within weeks of its June 2026 launch.

The Stakes

The Forum’s findings only matter if they arrive: in the outlets policymakers read, in the languages the region speaks, and inside the closed societies themselves. The newsroom is how the rest of the machine reaches the world.

The Record
•214 press placements in roughly 20 countries and a dozen languages in the first half of 2026, 54 of them in flagship outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, and Reuters.
•3,000,000-plus website readers in the first half of 2026, roughly 10 times the prior year’s pace; 72 million Google search impressions; more than 8 million newsletter deliveries.
•Our single largest source of readers traces to a global gateway used to bypass censorship. That is not a vanity metric. That is the mission working.
•39 distinct authors published across MEF platforms in the first half of 2026.
What Is Next

Sustain the pace and deepen the bench of Writing Fellows; keep the Insider’s daily discipline; and keep reaching the closed societies themselves, where the largest share of our readers already are.

3M+
Website readers in the first half of 2026, roughly 10 times the prior year’s pace.
What a Gift Funds
The Writing Fellows program: 39 distinct authors appeared across MEF platforms in the first half of 2026. Fellows are the pipeline: the next generation of analysts published, edited, and placed under the Forum’s standard.
To Discuss a Gift
Gregg Roman
Executive Director
donations@meforum.org
(215) 546-5406
Leave-Behind The print-ready one-pager of this briefing: one Letter page, PDF-exportable.