To understand the importance of translation in news agencies, which often set the agenda for other news media in the 21st century, it is crucial to comprehend their centrality in the global circulation of information. As information wholesalers, news agencies provide a global or regional network of reporters without which it would be impossible for other media outlets to follow and cover news events across the world. From the angle of translation studies, research into news agencies focusses more on global news agencies, either by comparing their production in several languages or unveiling their translational practices. Translation in the news agencies shares some characteristics with news translation in general. Translation is usually in the hands of journalists, who mostly work without any translation training. Translation is perceived in contradictory ways: as lexical transfer for quotations and rewriting for other parts of news dispatches. This particular context of translation questions basic concepts of translation studies such as source, equivalence and domestication. Future research on news agencies will need to include the sub-fields of audiovisual translation and social media translation.