The Philadelphia Inquirer, often referred to simply as The Inquirer and occasionally The Inky, is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer is the third-longest continuously operating daily newspaper in the United States.
The newspaper has the largest circulation of any newspaper in both Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia metropolitan area, which includes Philadelphia and its surrounding communities in southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. As of 2020, the newspaper has the 17th-largest circulation of any newspaper in the United States As of 2020, The Inquirer has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes.
Several decades after its 1829 founding, The Inquirer began emerging as one of the nation's major newspapers during the American Civil War. Its circulation dropped after the Civil War's conclusion, but it rose again by the end of the 19th century. Originally supportive of the Democratic Party, The Inquirers political orientation eventually shifted toward the Whig Party and then the Republican Party before stating, in the mid-20th century, that it was politically independent.
By the end of the 1960s, The Inquirer trailed its chief competitor, The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in circulation, and was lacking modern facilities and experienced staff. In the 1970s, however, following its acquisition by Knight Ridder and the hiring of new editors, it once again emerged as one of the nation's most prominent and influential newspapers.
The Philadelphia Inquirer is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which merged the Philadelphia Daily News, the city's daily tabloid, into The Inquirer in 2019. As of 2026, the newspaper's publisher and chief executive officer is Elizabeth H. Hughes, and its editor is Gabriel Escobar.
History
19th century
thumb|The [[Inquirer Building at 400 North Broad Street in Logan Square, formerly known as the Elverson Building, was home to the newspaper from 1924 to 2011.]]
The Philadelphia Inquirer was founded June 1, 1829, by printer John R. Walker and John Norvell, former editor of Philadelphia's largest newspaper, the Aurora & Gazette. An editorial in the first issue of The Pennsylvania Inquirer promised that the paper would be devoted to the right of a minority to voice their opinion and "the maintenance of the rights and liberties of the people, equally against the abuses as the usurpation of power." They pledged support to then-President Andrew Jackson and "home industries, American manufactures, and internal improvements that so materially contribute to the agricultural, commercial and national prosperity."
The Philadelphia Inquirer is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the United States. In 1962, an Inquirer-commissioned historian traced The Inquirer to John Dunlap's The Pennsylvania Packet, which was founded on October 28, 1771.
In 1850, The Packet was merged with another newspaper, The North American, which later merged with the Philadelphia Public Ledger. The Public Ledger, in turn, merged with The Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1930s.
Between 1962 and 1975, a line on The Inquirers front page claimed that the newspaper is the United States' oldest surviving daily newspaper.
Curtis died a year later and his stepson-in-law, John Charles Martin, took charge. Martin merged The Inquirer with another paper, the Public Ledger, but the Great Depression hurt Curtis-Martin Newspapers and the company defaulted in payments of maturity notes. Ownership of The Inquirer then returned to the Patenôtre family and Elverson Corp.
Charles A. Taylor was elected president of The Inquirer Co. and ran the paper until it was sold to Moses L. Annenberg in 1936. During the period between Elverson Jr. and Annenberg The Inquirer stagnated, its editors ignoring most of the poor economic news of the Depression. The lack of growth allowed J. David Stern's newspaper, The Philadelphia Record, to surpass The Inquirer in circulation and become the largest newspaper in Pennsylvania.
Under Moses Annenberg, The Inquirer turned around. Annenberg added new features, increased staff and held promotions to increase circulation. By November 1938 Inquirer<nowiki>'s</nowiki> weekday circulation increased to 345,422 from 280,093 in 1936. During that same period the Record<nowiki>'s</nowiki> circulation had dropped to 204,000 from 328,322.
In 1939, Annenberg was charged with income tax evasion. Annenberg pleaded guilty before his trial and was sentenced to three years in prison. While incarcerated, he fell ill and died from a brain tumor six weeks after his release from prison in June 1942. Upon Moses Annenberg's death, his son, Walter Annenberg, took over.
In 1947, the Record went out of business, and The Philadelphia Inquirer emerged as Philadelphia's only major daily morning newspaper. While still trailing behind Philadelphia's largest newspaper, the Evening Bulletin, The Inquirer also continued to operate profitably.
In 1948, Walter Annenberg expanded the Inquirer Building with a new structure that housed new printing presses for The Inquirer. During the 1950s and 1960s, Annenberg acquired Seventeen magazine and TV Guide.
| 533,000
| 995,000
|-
| 1990
| 511,000
| 996,000
|-
| 1999
| 402,000
| 802,000
|-
| 2002
| 350,457
| 705,965
|-
| 2007
| 338,049
| 645,095
|-
| 2019
| 101,818
| 201,024
|}
In 1969, Samuel Newhouse offered Annenberg $55 million to acquire The Inquirer. But having earlier promised John S. Knight the right of first refusal to any sale, Annenberg instead sold the newspaper to Knight, and The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News became part of Knight Newspapers and its new subsidiary, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. (PNI). Five years later, in 1974, Knight Newspapers merged with Ridder Publications to form Knight Ridder.
When The Inquirer was acquired, it was understaffed, its equipment was largely outdated, many of its employees were underskilled, and the newspaper trailed its chief competitor, the Evening Bulletin, in weekday circulation. In 1972, however, Eugene L. Roberts Jr. became The Inquirer executive editor, and once again turned the newspaper around.
Between 1975 and 1990, The Inquirer won seventeen Pulitzers, six of which were won in consecutive years between 1975 and 1980, and the newspaper won more journalism awards than any other newspaper in the United States. Time magazine named The Inquirer one of the ten best daily newspapers in the United States, calling Roberts' changes to the paper, "one of the most remarkable turnarounds, in quality and profitability, in the history of American journalism." By 1989, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.'s editorial staff reached a peak of 721 employees.
In the 1990s, The Inquirer again confronted challenges with diminishing circulation and advertisement revenue. While part of a nationwide trend, the impact was exacerbated by, according to dissatisfied Inquirer employees, the newspaper resisting changes that many other daily newspapers implemented to keep readers and pressure from Knight Ridder to cut operating costs. the public service award (the top category) in 2012 for "its coverage of pervasive violence in the city's schools", and the 2014 prize for criticism, won by the newspaper's architecture critic, Inga Saffron.
In 1998, Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano filed a libel suit against Knight Ridder, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Inquirer editor Robert Rosenthal over comments Rosenthal made about Cipriano to The Washington Post, claiming it was difficult reporting negative stories in The Inquirer about the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Rosenthal later claimed that Cipriano had "a very strong personal point of view and an agenda...He could never prove (his stories)." The suit was later settled out of court in 2001.
21st century
In the early 21st century, The Philadelphia Inquirer launched an online news desk to compete with local Philadelphia radio stations in the coverage of breaking news. On June 29, 2006, The Inquirer and Daily News were sold to Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC (PMH), a group of Philadelphia-area business people, including Brian Tierney, PMH's chief executive. The new owners announced plans to spend US$5 million on advertisements and promotions to increase The Inquirer<nowiki>'s</nowiki> profile and readership.
Following PMH's acquisition, The Inquirer advertising and other revenue, especially its national advertising revenue, fell considerably, and the newspaper's circulation also continued to fall. As a result, the newspaper's management cut 400 jobs at The Inquirer and Daily News between 2006 and 2009. On February 21, 2009, despite cutting its operating costs, however, Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the company holding approximately US$390 million in debt, much of which was borrowed to acquire The Inquirer and Daily News.
Ownership shifts (2009-2014)
The bankruptcy filing kicked off a year-long dispute between Philadelphia Media Holdings and its creditors. Creditors, including banks and hedge funds, sought to take control of Philadelphia Newspapers LLC themselves and opposed efforts by Philadelphia Media Holdings to maintain control of the newspaper's operations. Philadelphia Media Holdings was supported by most of the newspaper's unions. It also launched a public relations campaign to promote its continued control of the newspaper, highlighting the value of local ownership of media.
On April 28, 2010, at a bankruptcy auction, the group of lending creditors and a group of local investors allied with Tierney both bid for The Inquirer and Daily News. The lenders emerged with the winning bid for the newspapers, but the deal collapsed after the lenders, operating under the name of Philadelphia Media Network (PMN), were unable to reach a contract agreement with the union representing the company's newspaper delivery drivers.
Philadelphia Newspapers, represented by Lawrence G. McMichael of Dilworth Paxson LLP, challenged the right of creditors to credit bid at a bankruptcy auction. Their claim was ultimately heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which agreed that credit bidding was not permitted.
In September 2010, both newspapers again were placed for auction, and again Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) won the bid. After successfully negotiating a contract with all of the newspaper's 14 unions, the $139 million deal was finalized on October 8. The Philadelphia Inquirer continued with profitability, largely due to emerging competition from digital media sources.
By May 2012, the combined journalist staff at all of Philadelphia Media Network was about 320, and some of the same stories and photographs appeared both in The Inquirer and Daily News. In October 2011, Philadelphia Media Network sold the Inquirer Building to Bart Blatstein, a developer affiliated with Tower Investments Inc., who said he intended to turn the complex into a mixed-use complex of offices retail and apartments. The following month, however, publisher and chief executive officer Gregory J. Osberg announced that 600 of the 740 Philadelphia Media Network employees of The Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com would move to office space in the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store on east Market Street, and that the remaining employees would move to offices in the Philadelphia suburbs.
In July 2012, Philadelphia Media Network moved to the new location, consolidating its offices on the building's third floor. Cutbacks left much of the of the Inquirer Building empty, but the east Market Street location consolidated Philadelphia Media's departments, including the Daily News newsroom with The Inquirer. The new location has a street-level lobby and event room. Plans for the building also included electronic signage such as a news ticker on the corner of the Center City Philadelphia high-rise.
On April 2, 2012, a group of local business leaders paid $55 million for the newspaper, less than 15 percent of the $515 million spent to buy the papers in 2006. In June 2014, PMN was sold to H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, who appointed C.Z. "Terry" Egger as publisher and chief executive officer in October 2015.
Nonprofit era and merger (2016-present)
In 2016, Lenfest donated PMN to The Philadelphia Foundation, so that The Inquirer, its daily tabloid affiliate, the Daily News, and their joint website, Philly.com, could remain in Philadelphia.
In 2019, PMN renamed Philly.com to Inquirer.com, and the Daily News was made an edition of The Inquirer. Philadelphia Media Network, in turn, was renamed The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. The Inquirer also became a founding member of Spotlight PA, an investigative reporting partnership focused on Pennsylvania.
On June 2, 2020, The Inquirer ran an Inga Saffron op-ed covering the George Floyd protests under the headline "Buildings Matter, Too", a reference to property damage inflicted by Black Lives Matter during the Floyd protests. The next day, editors apologized for the headline and several Inquirer journalists wrote an open letter, alleging that the newspaper was failing to report accurately on the Philadelphia area's non-white communities. The letter demanded a plan for correcting these issues, threatening to call in "sick and tired" beginning the following day, June 4, if the concerns were not addressed. The letter read in part:
On June 4, as promised in their letter, over 40 Inquirer staffers called in sick. Two days later, on June 6, the newspaper announced that Stan Wischnowski would resign as the newspaper's senior vice president and executive editor, and Inquirer journalists were told they would not have a say in his replacement. In 2022, the paper admitted to its own racism, both in publishing the article and across the organization.
In May 2023, The Philadelphia Inquirer was severely disrupted by a cyberattack. In March 2025, the Inquirer eliminated its Communities and Engagement Desk, which had covered marginalized communities since 2020.
Politics
thumb|The sign above the entrance to [[Inquirer Building]]
Since its founding in 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer has asserted itself editorially on political issues of the day. In its earliest days, John Norvell left as editor of what was then the Aurora & Gazette because he disagreed with what he felt was the newspaper's editorial approval of a movement towards a European class system.
When Norvell and John Walker founded The Inquirer, they wanted the newspaper to represent all people and not just its upper classes. The newly launched newspaper supported the ideology of Jeffersonian democracy and the political leadership of then U.S. president Andrew Jackson, declaring support for the right of the minority's opinion to be heard.
When Norvell and Walker sold their newspaper to Jesper Harding, Harding kept the newspaper close to the founder's politics and supported the Democratic Party. However, Harding disagreed with Andrew Jackson's handling of the Second Bank of the United States, and he began supporting the anti-Jackson wing of the Democrats. During the 1836 Presidential election, Harding supported the Whig party candidate over the Democratic candidate, which led The Inquirer to become known as a pro-Whig newspaper.
Once the Civil War began, The Inquirer reported neutrally and independently on the war, but firmly supported the Union. Shapp attributed his loss of the election to Annenberg's attack campaign. Although the Inquirer was known as the "Republican Bible of Pennsylvania" in the early 1900s, as of 2006, The Inquirer had not endorsed a Republican candidate for president for over a quarter century, when it endorsed Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, the newspaper also faced criticism for its coverage of Israel, including from the Zionist Organization of America, which accused The Inquirer of being anti-Israel.
In 2006, The Inquirer became one of the only major United States newspapers to print one of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. Following its publication, Muslims picketed outside the Inquirer Building to protest their printing.
When Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. (PMH) bought the paper in 2006, Brian Tierney and the business people associated with PMH signed a pledge promising that they would not seek to influence the content of the newspaper. Tierney, a Republican advertising and public relations executive, had criticized The Inquirer in the past on behalf of his clients, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which he had represented.
In 2012, the sale of The Inquirer to six local Philadelphia business leaders led to concerns of conflict of interest. The new owners, which included New Jersey Democratic fundraiser George Norcross III, media entrepreneur H. F. Lenfest, former New Jersey Nets owner Lewis Katz, and CEO of Liberty Property Trust and chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce William Hankowsky, pledged not to influence the content of the paper.
- Elizabeth H. Hughes
- Lisa Kabnick, Chair
- S. Mitra Kalita
- Josh Kopelman, Chair Emeritus
- Keith Leaphart, Vice Chair
- Neil Vogel
- Gillian B. White
- Mary Stengel Austen
- Rebecca Campbell
Workforce
In March 2020, The NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia and Philadelphia Inquirer LLC reached an agreement on a three-year contract agreement that would include a workforce diversity provision and raises for the entire newsroom, which had not seen across the board salary increases since August 2009. NewsGuild membership ratified the three-year contract agreement on March 17, 2020. Three years later, in August 2023, the NewsGuild and Inquirer agreed on a new three-year contract that the guild said was its best contract in 20 years.
Demographics
The Inquirer has 225 newsroom employees. 54.7% of whom are male and 45.3% of whom are female. Critics have alleged that the racial demographics of the newsroom, which is 75 percent White, does not match the city it covers, which is only 34% White. However, these allegations appear to exclude the broader circulation of the newspaper, which stretches beyond the city of Philadelphia, which is approximately 60% White and approximately 20% Black.
As of 2021, three quarters of the editors of The Inquirer were White. As of 2026, two desks – Health and Investigations – have no Black journalists.
Production
The Philadelphia Inquirer is headquartered at 100 S. Independence Mall West in the Market East section of Center City Philadelphia, where its tabloid sister publication, the Philadelphia Daily News is also headquartered.
Since 1995, The Inquirer has been available on the Internet, most recently at Inquirer.com, which, along with the Philadelphia Daily News, is part of The Philadelphia Inquirer LLC.
In 2004, The Inquirer formed a partnership with Philadelphia's NBC station, WCAU, giving the paper access to WCAU's weather forecasts while also contributing to news segments throughout the day.
In 2020, The Inquirer closed its Schuylkill Printing Plant in Upper Merion Township, laying off about 500 employees. Printing of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News was outsourced to a printing plant in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which is owned by Gannett, until 2024, when Gannett closed the Cherry Hill plant. Since then, The Inquirer and Daily News have been printed at a Gannett printing plant in Wilmington, Delaware.
As of May 2026, The Inquirer publisher is Elizabeth H. Hughes, and its editor and senior vice president is Gabriel Escobar. Managing editors are Charlotte Sutton, Patrick Kerkstra, Richard G. Jones, Michael Huang, Kate Dailey, Danese Kenon, and Matthew Doig. Deputy managing editors are Brian Leighton, Ross Maghielse, Molly Eichel, and Ariella Cohen.
The Inquirer provides coverage of Philadelphia and its surrounding suburban communities in northern Delaware, South Jersey, and southeastern Pennsylvania.
Pulitzer Prizes
{| class="collapsible wikitable uncollapsed" style="clear: none; font-size: 95%; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0 auto; width: 100%;"
|-
! style="text-align:center;" colspan="5"| Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The Philadelphia Inquirer
|-
! Year
! Award
! Person(s)
! Work
|-
| 1975
| National Reporting
| Donald Barlett and James B. Steele
| "Auditing the Internal Revenue Service" series
|-
| 1976
| Editorial Cartooning
| Tony Auth
| "O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain"
|-
| 1977
| Local Investigative Specialized Reporting
| Acel Moore and Wendell Rawls, Jr.
| Report on the conditions at the Fairview State Hospital for the mentally ill
|-
| 1978
| Public Service
| The Philadelphia Inquirer
| A series of articles on the abuse of power by Philadelphia police
|-
| 1979
| International Reporting
| Richard Ben Cramer
| Reports from the Middle East
|-
| 1980
| Local General or Spot News Reporting
| Staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer
| Coverage of the Three Mile Island accident
|-
| 1985
| Investigative Reporting
| William K. Marimow
| Exposé on the Philadelphia police K-9 unit
|-
| 1985
| Feature Photography
| Larry C. Price
| Series of photographs from Angola and El Salvador
|-
| 1986
| National Reporting
| Arthur Howe
| Report on deficiencies in IRS processing of tax returns-reporting
|-
| 1986
| Feature Photography
| Tom Gralish
| Series of photographs on the homeless in Philadelphia
|-
| 1987
| Investigative Reporting
| John Woestendiek
| Prison beat reporting
|-
| 1987
| Investigative Reporting
| Daniel R. Biddle, H. G. Bissinger and Fredric N. Tulsky
| "Disorder in the Court"
|-
| 1987
| Feature Writing
| Steve Twomey
| Profile of life aboard an aircraft carrier
|-
| 1988
| National Reporting
| Tim Weiner
| Series on a secret Pentagon budget used for defense research and an arms buildup
|-
| 1989
| National Reporting
| Donald Barlett and James B. Steele
| Investigation into the Tax Reform Act of 1986
|-
| 1989
| Feature Writing
| David Zucchino
| "Being Black in South Africa"
|-
| 1990
| Public Service
| Gilbert M. Gaul
| Report on the American blood industry
|-
| 1997
| Explanatory Journalism
| Michael Vitez, April Saul and Ron Cortes
| Series on the choices of the critically ill
|-
| 2012
| Public Service
| Staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer
| "...exploration of pervasive violence in the city's schools"
|-
| 2014
| Criticism
| Inga Saffron
| Criticism of architecture
|-
| colspan="4" | <small>Source: The Pulitzer Prizes: Columbia University</small>
|}
See also
- List of newspapers in Pennsylvania
- List of newspapers in the United States by circulation
- Media in Philadelphia
- The Philadelphia Inquirer people
References
External links
- Official website