Lost in 'Translation' Exercise

Part A
1. My research document is entitled ‘Airport Security’. It is an independent report commissioned by the UK government, and prepared by the retired UK politician the honorable sir John Wheeler.

2. The report documents I review of present of security arrangement in UK airports include threats from terrorist and organized crime.

3. The report was accepted by government in principle, with each of the reports recommendations accepted.

4. Twenty-three recommendations were made. Two relating to the area of serious and organized crime, six relating to strategic direction and co-ordination at UK airports, four relating to the formal designation of air port areas, three dealing with powers within airport areas, two on the possible establishment of a special branch to assist with placing within airport areas for dealing with CCTV and automatic number plate recognition and other technologies and the two on vulnerabilities in the area of employed stuff.

5. I have identified four journalistic articles which report on aspects of the wheeler security report.

a. Article dated Sunday 01 12 2002, entitled airlines cautious about ‘Sky Marshals’ as reported on BBC. On this occasion, the article focused only on one aspect of the report, mentioning that ‘the sky marshals idea was one the recommendations’ in the Wheeler security report.
The article mentions no other aspects of the report, no consider any other recommendations made in the report.

b. On the 4th Aug 2005, the professional security magazine online presented an article entitled 'Aussie Airport Review'. This article mentions that sir John ‘conducted a review of security at major airports across the UK, including Heathrow’ but makes no mention of any of the recommendations mentioned in the Wheeler security report no any other detail from the report itself.

c. On 25th Sep 2005, Times Online presented an article entitled 'Australia Airports Shame'. On this occasion the article went so far as to make a direct quotation from the body of the report itself, but made no mention of these specific recommendations set out in the report.

d. Finally, again on 25th Sep 2005, Times Online presented another article entitled ‘Direction: In Brief’, here, the article mentions the author of the report and again presents a direct short quotation from the report but does not mention any other recommendations nor any other detail set out in the report.


Part B
1. It is clear that translation of lengthy and detailed reports involving research and/or review processes can be made more accessible to a much wider audience by use of translation into short journalistic articles. As the example above much of these report, specifically the main body of the report and review material relating to individual airport and source material, could be considered in relevant or no interest to the wide community.

2. What is of interest and relevant to the wide community can be translated, reduced or boiled down to sizeable and more digestible news articles. This reduction or translation of a body of material into journalistic material is in a fact ‘translation in practice’.


This original research paper:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/security/aviation/airport/airportsecurityreportbythert4872

Translation from BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2531749.stm

Translation from Times Online:
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/news/article570983.ece
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/article569852.ece

Translation from Professional Security Magazine Online:
http://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/newsdetails.aspx?NewsArticleID=3811&imgID=2