One of the main issues often discussed by translators who work in media occupation is what actions are right and what are wrong. Why is it then that the readers or viewers of mass media often find so much fault with the “ethics” of the disseminators of news, information, and entertainment? What has led the purveyors of mass communication to believe and act the way they do? Do they have a special obligation for ethical behavior that ordinary citizens do not; or do they, in fact, have a special waiver of the basic moral tenets that the rest of us must accept in order that we may have access to a “free marketplace of ideas”? These are the questions we must ask ourselves to formulate our opinion of the mass media ethics.

This series of articles is written to familiarize bilingual professionals with the tools needed to make honest and moral decisions regarding the use of mass media, both as consumers of the “products” of the media and a working professional in the field of journalism and other media. 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. Its main purpose is to suggest some good ideas you can choose between in various situations. 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 put a great effort in answering the numerous questions of our blog readers. We also try to give a complete and detailed explanation of each of them.

As one Vietnamese to English Translation 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 have to construct your own benchmark by which you can judge your decisions.

So, this series of articles will deal with 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. Moreover, a Polish Translator member of our team has collected reams of information related to entertainment industry and its effect on culture all over the world. And, of course, volumes have been written to oppose the condition state of contemporary journalism in various societies. However, advertising and, especially, public relations are often given short shift or—worse—compared with journalism, assuming that the moral dictates of the one will apply across the board to the others. That is rarely the case, and this book is designed to point out the differences that exist among these three practices in hopes that reasonable and specific guidelines can be developed by which they may be analyzed and, if need be, judged according to their specialized functions within our society. At last, the principle to tell the truth and to do least harm should be obligatory for all mass media, but to a different extent and for undoubtedly different reasons.

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