Despite the fact that translation constitutes an absolutely essential component of news production process, and that most news writing requires language transfer to some degree, journalism studies has ignored the contribution of translation to the production of international news and the relevant processes to a great extent. This negligence, however, is not confined to media studies; translation studies too, has disregarded news translation for a long time and only recently started to give it the attention it deserves. In this paper, the aim is to establish an understanding of what news translation entails, what it denotes in translation and media studies, its principles and procedures, what factors affect it, and most importantly, what distinguishes it from other types of translation such as literary translation. The dissection of the above issues will hopefully be conductive to changing our perception of news translation and give us insight as to its significance in the production of global news. Another possible gain from the current study will be the contribution that can be made to how news translation courses are designed and thought in media and journalism schools. Manuscript profile

AbstractThis article surveys the process of news translation, the role of news translators in this process and the skills, knowledge, and attributes necessary for them with the aim of establishing an understanding of the nature of news translation. It is also intended to ascertain whether news translation university courses are adequately designed and delivered in consonance with the requirements of the profession. To achieve this, 12 journalist-translators working for eight news agencies in Iran were invited to participate in this study. Through in depth interviews and a Likert scale questionnaire, some questions were put to the interviewees, the responses to which indicated that news translation process consists of five major steps, very much common to all agencies. However, who are the actors, what happens in between the steps, and where do news translators stand in this process all depend on the news agency’s policies and the competencies of the translators. The interviewees also identified a total of 31 traits as the necessary attributes of competent news translators. Finally, in regard to the relevant university programs, the experts had a unanimous negative opinion and believed that the programs are due for major revision. It is expected that examining these issues will illuminate some under-attended aspects of news production and make a constructive contribution to development of news translation syllabuses and design of the courses taught in journalism and media colleges and universities. Manuscript profile

This article surveys the process of news translation, the role of news translators in this process, and the skills, knowledge, and attributes necessary for them to establish an understanding of the nature of news translation. It is also intended to ascertain whether news translation university courses are adequately designed and delivered in consonance with the requirements of the profession. To achieve this, 12 journalist-translators working for eight news agencies in Iran were invited to participate in this study. Through in-depth interviews and a Likert scale questionnaire, some questions were put to the interviewees, the responses to which indicated that the news translation process consists of five major steps, very much common to all agencies. However, who are the actors, what happens in between the steps, and where do news translators stand in this process all depend on the news agency’s policies and the competencies of the translators. The interviewees also identified a total of 31 traits as the necessary attributes of competent news translators. Finally, regarding the relevant university programs, the experts had a unanimous negative opinion and believed that the programs were due for major revision. It is expected that examining these issues will illuminate some under-attended aspects of news production and make a constructive contribution to the development of news translation syllabuses and the design of the courses taught in journalism and media colleges and universities. Manuscript profile