This study explores how to use a social semiotic approach to the analysis of the genre of news reporting in newspapers. The analysis looks for ideological subtexts and bias in both verbal and visual messages encoded in news reporting. A set of tools drawing on various theories of semiotics is developed for this purpose, incorporating also the insights and findings of critical discourse analysts. The tools are applied to analysing the coverage of a specific political issue over a short period of time in four quality newspapers: two Arab and two British. The study is underpinned by the assumption that translators need access to a set of tools of analysis to approach a source text, particularly an ideologically loaded one, in an informed way. An appreciation of the dynamics of the source text and the nature of its ideological underpinnings is a prerequisite to successful and responsible translation.