Translation in global news agencies

Abstract

This article presents news agencies as vast translation agencies, structurally designed to achieve fast and reliable translations of large amounts of information. It maintains that translation is of the utmost importance in the news agencies and that it is inseparable from other journalistic practices that intervene in the production of news. Rejecting the naïve view that translations are often improvised by people who do not have the necessary training, the article claims that the news editor has the specific skills required for the elaboration of such translations, and that the organisation of news agencies has been conceived in order to facilitate communication flows between different linguistic communities so as to reach global publics with maximum speed and efficiency. If news translation has traditionally been neglected by Translation Studies it is because it usually is in the hands of journalists rather than translators. A detailed examination of the nature and processes involved in news translation problematises central concepts such as authorship and equivalence and leads Translation Studies in new directions.