Trust and mistrust in translation: Exploring moral implications through a case study of the 2023 Al-Ahli Arab Hospital boming

This article examines trust and mistrust in translation as a normative and epistemic process embedded in journalistic practice rather than a background condition of communication. While previous studies have explored linguistic, historical, and political dimensions of trust in translation, trust itself remains under-theorized as an analytical category. Drawing on Annette Baier’s conceptualization of trust as relational and grounded in vulnerability, the article reconceptualizes translation as a site where trust is constructed through institutional practices, narrative framing, and audience positioning. Focusing on BBC English and BBC Arabic coverage of the 2023 war on Gaza, specifically the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on 17 October 2023, the study employs qualitative comparative discourse analysis to examine attribution, evidentiality, and narrative construction. The findings show that BBC Arabic constructs trust through contextualization, affective engagement, and local testimony, while BBC English relies on institutional verification, expert authority, and evidential caution. The article introduces the concept of “patchwork trust” to explain how competing claims and institutional voices produce an ambiguous but authoritative account. The study argues that translation in news reporting actively produces knowledge and generates divergent realities, and that mistrust should be understood as an epistemically meaningful response to asymmetrical representations in conflict reporting.