Translation and open-source intelligence: BBC monitoring

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of the translator’s role at BBC Monitoring as it has adapted to meet the requirements of an evolving political, military, and communications environment. For over 70 years, linguists employed at BBC Monitoring have exercised a key mediating influence on how BBC departments, the British government, and a number of external and commercial customers have learned about the world’s media. By interpreting and selecting from a mass of freely available data to meet the information requirements of their customers, the organisation has long acted as the UK’s principal open-source intelligence agency. BBC Monitoring employees have rarely, however, identified with an intelligence role. It has only been during the last decade that the analytical role of linguists, now monitoring journalists, has been fully acknowledged and encouraged.