News Readers Have To Ring Their Parents To Find Out Who James Brown Is

Following the death of Soul singer James Brown yesterday, coverage of his influence on music and popular culture has been dominated by one fact only.

That fact is that almost all the news anchors who fill in over the holidays for the real newsmen and woman are too young to have any idea who James Brown actually is. Frantic phone calls were made yesterday to parents and even aunts and uncles to get the facts on who James Brown was, what he did, how long he did it for and what was up with that funky hair of his.

The story came after a survey of fill-in newscasters for the holiday period found that 78.7% of them were under the age of 29. Reasons for the higher percentage of young readers include gullibility to work over the festive period and the smell of money.

The majority of established news anchors over the age of 30 who opt not to work cite their family and the lure of ski-ing in Aspen.