News Corp, part of the Murdoch family media empire, has announced it will bring a version of the brash rightwing New York City tabloid the New York Post to California in early 2026 with the launch of a daily Los Angeles-based newspaper called the California Post.
According to New York Post Media Group – a News Corp subsidiary and home of New York’s biggest tabloid, as well as Page Six, and Decider – the California Post will look and feel similar to its New York counterpart, delivering reporting, sports coverage and celebrity gossip from a California perspective.
It will have a team of editors, reporters and photographers based in the state, and its content will live across a new set of dedicated digital channels and a daily print newspaper that will echo the New York Post’s signature cover style.
News Corp veteran Nick Papps, a longtime editor at the corporation’s Australian operation, has been named editor-in-chief of the California Post, reporting to Keith Poole, the New York Post’s editor-in-chief.
“California is the most populous state in the country, and is the epicenter of entertainment, the AI revolution and advanced manufacturing – not to mention a sports powerhouse,” Poole said in a statement. “Yet many stories are not being told, and many viewpoints are not being represented.”
It comes at a trying time for news outlets in the Los Angeles area. The storied Los Angeles Times, the state’s biggest paper and once one of the most influential regional outlets in the US, lost more than 20% of its newsroom last January, months after laying off 74 staffers amid advertising declines in 2023. On top of losing tens of millions of dollars a year, it also suffered controversy and subscription losses after its owner blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris in last year’s election.
One of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship papers, the New York Post, meanwhile, has remained profitable, and already has a large and established readership in California. The Los Angeles area is home to the second-largest concentration of Post readers, according to News Corp, and the vast majority (90%) of the Post’s digital readership lives outside of New York.
It comes at a critical time for a US state very much on the dual frontlines of the climate crisis, with extreme weather driving ever more common and increasingly devastating wildfires and a huge rebuilding effort needed after January’s fires in the Los Angeles area, and the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant agenda.
The launch of the California Post has also been timed to coincide with a high-profile period for the Bay Area and LA with elections due to be held in 2026, including for California governor, and the state set to host matches during next year’s Fifa World Cup, and LA to host the Summer Olympics in 2028.
“Los Angeles and California surely need a daily dose of The Post as an antidote to the jaundiced, jaded journalism that has sadly proliferated,” said Robert Thomson, News Corp CEO. “We are at a pivotal moment for the city and the state, and there is no doubt that The Post will play a crucial role in engaging and enlightening readers, who are starved of serious reporting and puckish wit.”
