19th century 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's weekday circulation increased to 345,422 from 280,093 in 1936. During that same period the
Record's 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. 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's 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 four months later, 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==