Translation Studies With Regards To Journalism

One of the main issues often discussed by translators who work in media occupation is what actions are right and what are wrong. Nevertheless, it is not rare that we, as readers or viewers of these disseminators of news, information, and entertainment find that there is something wrong with the "ethics" of their actions. What lies beneath the beliefs and the actions of our mass communication purveyors? Are they obliged to adhere to special ethical norms that ordinary citizens are not, or, vice versa, they rely on a special waiver of the basic moral tenets that the rest of us must observe so that we may have access to a "free marketplace of ideas"? We have to ask ourselves these questions if we are to be moral agents of the mass media.

This series of articles aims to inform bilingual professionals about the tools needed to make fair and moral decisions regarding the use of mass media, both as users of the media "products" and journalists or other media workers. We think that new Chinese Translator workers, Polish Translation and Arabic Translation workers who will be working on such matters as Medical Translation and Legal Translation will benefit from this article most. We have to state from the very beginning that the purpose of this article is not to rule what is "right" to do when handling situations. Instead, we seek to provide some good suggestions that seem “most appropriate” for a given situation. In doing so, we will concentrate mainly on the subject and on the reason we consider the action to be the most appropriate. We have done our best to answer many questions asked by the readers on our blog. We also try to give a complete and detailed explanation of each of them.

As one Vietnamese Translator worker who also contributed to this article suggested, after all you will be the one who has to draw conclusions as far as the answers you find most acceptable are concerned. We hope that you will realize to a greater extent that to make a moral decision is not an easy task. At the very least, you will need to determine your personal benchmark according to which you can evaluate your decisions.

Thus, this series of articles will cover news media, advertising, and public relations. While the investigation of entertainment media, for example television and the movie industry, are more attractive for translation workers, the above three are the most popular choices for college graduates who have majors both in Translation studies and Journalism or Communication. The experience gained by translation and interpretation workers who work in these three spheres can be applied to any other form of communication, information based or otherwise. In addition, one of our Polish Translator contributor has provided reams of information pertaining to the entertainment industry and its effect on culture throughout the world. Of course, there have also been written a lot of words against the condition state of modern journalism in different countries. Here we have to mention that advertising and, public relations in particular, are often paid little attention or, worse, are compared with journalism, taking for granted that the moral norms of the one are the same as of the other. Since that is rarely the case, this book is an attempt to outline the differences that exist among these three types of media in the hope of enhancing the development of sound and specific guidelines by which they may be analyzed and, if necessary, judged according to their specific functions. Finally, the principle of truth and minimizing harm should apply to all mass media, but to a different extent and for definitely different reasons.