2 - Translation as News

Summary

This chapter examines news translation from a diachronic and synchronic perspective and provides an introduction to key terms and concepts in news media translation research. I first offer an historical overview of the role of translation in journalism, “a word that did not itself appear until the early nineteenth century” (Woolf 2001, p. 80), looking at translation during the early stages of printed news production and dissemination in sixteenth-century Europe. I examine the role of news agencies and foreign correspondents since the mid-nineteenth century and consider the current scenario of globalized information flows. I then discuss the role of translation in the different stages of the production and dissemination of foreign news and look at translation practices and strategies in the workflows of different types of media outlets – from global news agencies, which provide multilingual coverage and produce in-house translations, to smaller organizations such as national newspapers and activist sites, which often rely on distributed models of translation.