This background paper recalls the main findings gained so far in news translation research. It also presents issues and questions which still deserve scholarly attention. The contributions to this special issue are contextualized in relation to research into news translation, or journalistic translation more widely. One of the major issues concerns the choice of methodological approaches to tackle the phenomenon of news translation. The contributions to this special issue illustrate scope and limitations of various methodologies, which are mainly product-oriented and advocate for triangulation with participant-centred methods.