Eugene J. McCarthy? Shana Alexander? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Leading journalists often display a surprising uniformity of judgement. An exasperated politician referred to reporters as birds who flocked together when deciding whether to alight on a telephone wire. Would you please explore this figurative expression?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In February 1963 U.S. Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota spoke before a convention of the Minnesota Newspaper Association, and a local newspaper quoted from McCarthy’s prepared remarks. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:1
There is the “ever-present disposition to oversimplification and to editorialize in the news reports.”
Columnists particularly “run to certain fads. They are like blackbirds on a telephone pole: As one flies away they all fly away, when one comes back, they all come back.”
McCarthy also included a version of this observation in his 1969 book “The Year of the People”. Details are given further below within the following collection of selected citations in chronological order.
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Like Blackbirds on a Telephone Line: As One Flies Away They All Fly Away, When One Comes Back, They All Come Back”