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# The Philadelphia Inquirer is here to fight
- URL: https://werd.io/the-philedelphia-inquirer-is-here-to-fight/
- Published: 2024-05-13T14:14:16.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-14T19:30:59.000Z
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: #Import 2025-06-13 09:20, Asides

SEPTA - the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority — trains are covered with these ads for [the Philadelphia Inquirer](https://www.inquirer.com/):

![Combative Philadelphia Inquirer ad](https://old.werd.io/file/6642201c501042d80f041142/thumb.jpg)

I’m curious to know if they actually work. They feel very negative to me: a pot-shot at the New York Times rather than an argument for why the Inquirer is great in its own right.

There’s an underlying assumption here that newspaper subscriptions are zero-sum: that each household will only receive one. Of course, most households aren’t even that: it’s increasingly rare for anyone to subscribe to a paper newspaper. But for digital subscriptions, I’d have assumed that it would be additional: households might subscribe to *both* the Inquirer and the Times (as well as a few other publications; maybe the New Yorker and Philadelphia Magazine).

Is their assumption right, or is mine? I don’t know. What I do know is that the ad feels combative and what I’m left with is the conflict rather than anything about the Inquirer’s own coverage. While there is definitely some anti-New York feeling among multi-generational Philadelphians, it feels like an odd choice.