Chick Young believes that he is being kicked into the long grass because he has refused to join twitter.
The veteran broadcaster recently turned 65 and fears that social media has accelerated his departure from front line BBC reporting.
A new generation of twitter ‘friendly’ Been reporters have emerged in recent times with social media their first port of call rather than building up a network of contacts within the game prepared to speak on and off the record.
Despite not showing any television coverage of Scotland’s defeat against Italy on Sunday the state broadcaster paid for Steven EBT Thompson and Darren Jackson to attend the match and provide their expert analysis.
On Friday Young will cover the Scotland v Iceland ladies international.
Explaining his position to the Daily Record he said: “I refused to do Twitter or Facebook and, in this day and age, I think that becomes an issue with media organisations I get that but I still don’t get Twitter, am I allowed to say I don’t approve of it?
“There’s nothing I can do about it and I’m not going to stand like King Canute trying to stop the future. I’m kind of old school and I don’t do social media and I was the same when photojournalism came in and you had reporters carrying cameras.
“And, to be fair, my gaffer at the time said, ‘You are probably the last man who will get away with it.’ The BBC kept sending me money until I was 65 so that’s all right by me.”
Going into detail about his dislike of twitter Young added: “When it all started at Hampden last week, people were tweeting as fact that Kenny Miller was lying prostrate on the ground with Hibs fans attacking him but it was rubbish.
“If you’re a journalist handling independent sources, particularly at the BBC, you can’t just start piling in because people with no sense of responsibility tweet absolute nonsense.”
