Philadelphia

Newspapers

Among the first newspapers to be printed within Philadelphia was The Pennsylvania Gazette, published by Benjamin Franklin. The success of the Gazette was due in no small part to Franklin's acute awareness of the types of stories that sold newspapers: sex, crime, and gossip. In addition to its distinctive journalistic style, the Gazette also distinguished itself by printing, on May 9, 1754, the “Join, or Die” graphic, considered the first political cartoon printed in the United States.

In 1800, when the United States capitol moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia undertook efforts to remake its image. Part of this shift in the city's development throughout the nineteenth century entailed the birth of several newspapers. The Philadelphia Inquirer was born on June 1, 1829, making the paper the third-oldest surviving daily in the United States. The Public Ledger was first printed on March 25, 1836. Eleven years later the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin appeared under the name Cummings' Evening Telegraphic Bulletin. The Philadelphia Tribune, the voice of the black community, was founded by Christopher J. Perry in 1884, making it the oldest black paper in America. In 1925, the tabloid Philadelphia Daily News was founded.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the competition among Philadelphia's various newspapers became fiercer. Although the Public Ledger folded in January 1942, the city was left with several dailies. When the Bulletin was purchased by William L. McLean in 1895, it was the smallest of the city's 13 daily newspapers with a circulation of 6,300. In ten short years the Bulletin was transformed into Philadelphia's premier paper with a circulation exceeding 200,000. After McLean's death in 1931, his son Robert took over. Committed to traditional journalistic norms such as objectivity and balance, McLean's Bulletin continued to dominate its prime competitor, the Inquirer, and was considered Philadelphia's paper of record for most of the twentieth century, with the exception of the Sunday newspaper, where the Inquirer held [Page 1049]a circulation lead. During most of this time, however, the Bulletin was the largest evening newspaper in the United States.

In the 1970s, like many evening newspapers, the Bulletin's readership began to decline. With a change in leadership at the Philadelphia Inquirer that made it a more viable competitor, the Bulletin ceased publication in 1982. Television also played a role in the Bulletin's decline, as did changing modes of transportation. With fewer workers taking public transportation, afternoon newspaper readership suffered.

Like the Bulletin, the Philadelphia Inquirer was long a family-owned newspaper. In 1936, the Inquirer was sold to Moses Annenberg, who began to raise the public visibility of the paper. In 1942 his son Walter Annenberg assumed leadership of the paper. While the newspaper supported Democrats in their efforts to reform the corrupt Republican-led machine that ruled Philadelphia throughout the 1950s, the Inquirer remained predominantly allied to the Republican party.

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