page_title: The Philadelphia Inquirer
section_title: Independent
hierarchical_section_title: The Philadelphia Inquirer / Politics / Independent
caption_attribution_description: IMG_0379
context_page_description: The Philadelphia Inquirer is a public-benefit corporation that publishes a news website and two daily newspapers that serve the Philadelphia metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest continually operating daily newspaper in the United States. Owned by The Lenfest Institute, a subsidiary of The Philadelphia Foundation, The Inquirer is the largest newspaper in the United States organized under nonprofit ownership. It has the 18th largest average weekday U.S. newspaper circulation and has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes. It is the newspaper of record in the Delaware Valley.
  The Inquirer first became a major newspaper during the American Civil War when its war coverage was popular on both sides. The paper's circulation dropped after the war, then rose by the end of the 19th century. Originally supportive of the Democratic Party, The Inquirer's political affiliation eventually shifted toward the Whig Party and then the Republican Party before officially becoming politically independent in the middle of the 20th century.
context_section_description: When the Record shut down in 1947, The Inquirer announced that it was now an independent newspaper and, frustrated with corruption in Philadelphia, supported Democratic candidates in the 1951 election. While Walter Annenberg had made The Inquirer independent, he did use the paper to attack people he disliked. Sometimes when a person or group angered Annenberg, that person would be blacklisted and not mentioned anywhere within The Inquirer. People on the blacklist were even airbrushed out of images. People who were on the list at one point included Nicholas Katzenbach, Ralph Nader, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and the basketball team the Philadelphia Warriors, who were not mentioned for an entire season. In 1966, Walter Annenberg used The Inquirer to attack Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Milton Shapp. During a press conference, an Inquirer reporter asked Shapp if he had ever been a patient in a mental hospital; having never been a patient, Shapp said no. The next day's headline in The Inquirer read "Shapp Denies Ever having been in a Mental Home." Shapp attributed his loss of the election to Annenberg's attack campaign.
  Annenberg was a backer and friend of Richard Nixon. In the 1952 presidential election, critics later claimed Annenberg had The Inquirer look the other way when covering accusations Nixon was misappropriating funds. Later, to avoid accusations of political bias, Annenberg had The Inquirer use only news agency sources such as the Associated Press for the 1960 and 1968 presidential elections. When Nixon was elected president in 1968, Annenberg was appointed the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James's. A year later when Annenberg sold the newspaper to Knight Newspapers, a part of the deal stipulated that Annenberg's name would appear as "Editor and Publisher Emeritus" in The Inquirer's masthead. In 1970, Annenberg, already unhappy with changes in the newspaper, had his name removed from the paper after an editorial critical of Richard Nixon appeared.
  Under Knight Ridder, The Inquirer continued to be editorially independent. However, conservative commentators have labeled The Inquirer left leaning, and the paper has not endorsed a Republican candidate for President of the United States since Gerald Ford in 1976. Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, groups supportive of Israel such as the Zionist Organization of America often 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. Afterwards, Muslims picketed outside The Inquirer Building to protest the printing of the cartoons in the paper.
  When Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. (PMH) bought the paper in 2006, Brian P. Tierney and the business people behind PMH signed a pledge promising that they would not influence the content of the paper. Tierney, a Republican activist who had represented many local groups in the Philadelphia area, had criticized The Inquirer in the past on behalf of his clients. One of Tierney's clients had been the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which he had represented during the Cipriano affair. PMH membership also included Bruce E. Toll, vice chairman of Toll Brothers Inc. Tierney said that the group was aware that the fastest way to ruin its investment in The Inquirer was to threaten the paper's editorial independence. The 2012 sale of Philadelphia Media Network to six local business leaders also led to concern 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.
caption: Copies of The Inquirer being sold at the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl LII victory parade in 2018
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