Journalators? An ethnographic study of British journalists who translate

Abstract:

This article discusses the blurring of boundaries between journalist and translator (van Doorslaer 2012: 1050) in the context of British news discourse on Italy. Focusing on the journalists’ perspective, the article presents data gathered from a series of qualitative interviews with correspondents for Italy who work for major British newspapers, Reuters chief correspondent for Italy, and also the former editor-in-chief of The Economist.

The study aims to ascertain exactly who translates the extracts and quotes that are “embedded as raw material for the construction of news stories” (Orengo 2005: 173) that are published in the newspapers under discussion. Further objectives of the study are to uncover some aspects of the “journalator’s” habitus, to find out how the journalists perceive translation in their work, and to learn something of their translational practices. In order to shed light on this last point, two examples of Berlusconi’s taboo language as reported in the media were discussed with the interviewees. The article concludes with some tentative observations on the data discussed.

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