Paul Bradshaw on his Online Journalism Blog has picked up on a revealing aspect of an new initiative by the UK’s three leading journalism training bodies, labeling the plan as the Shovelware Alliance.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists, the Broadcasting Journalism Training Council and the Periodicals Training Council have announced they will be working together on a joint Journalism Training Council.

The aim is to “set an agenda and timetable for how journalism training can be further converged to meet the requirements of the news media industries.”

The training bodies talk about the need to prepare journalists to work in multiplatform news organisations, including:
b.    Developing ideas for repurposing and adding to print or broadcast news material for use on websites including the use of links, background material, writing for the website, the basics of search engine optimisation and use of basic content management systems.

As Bradshaw points out, this is “treating the website as a place to shovel – and possibly add to – content produced for another medium.”

It is dispiriting to hear that training bodies continue to view the net as a distribution platform for existing print and broadcast content, rather than recognising the web as a distinct medium.