Oral History Interviews

Interview: Inga Saffron

Date of Interview: November 6, 2021
Place of Interview: Philadelphia
Interviewer: Ford Risley

Biographical Summary
Inga Saffron was born on Long Island, New York. She attended New York University, and while in school, moved to Ireland to be a freelance writer. She returned to the U.S. and worked as a reporter for the Courier News in New Jersey. She joined The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1984 as a suburban reporter and later reported in Eastern Europe for Knight-Ridder. She returned to Philadelphia in 1998 and became the Inquirer’s architecture reporter, writing about architecture, design and planning issues. She won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. A collection of her architecture writing was published in the 2020 book, "Becoming Philadelphia: How an Old American City Made Itself New Again."

Interview Highlights
Saffron speaks about her family and education; about working as a freelance writer in Ireland; about working as a reporter for the Courier News; about working as suburban reporter, Eastern European correspondent, and architecture writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer; about her approach to reporting about architecture, design and planning issues; about the role of an architecture critic and important stories she has covered; about winning the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism after being nominated three previous times; and about how journalism has changed for women during her career.

Complete Interview Inga Saffron