Murdoch’s News Corp goes west with launch of California Post

By Danielle Broadway

LOS ANGELES, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The California Post, a conservative daily tabloid published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in print and online, made its debut this week, marking the New York Post’s expansion into the West Coast media landscape.

The paper, a California counterpart to the New York tabloid, aims to shake up the struggling news industry in the country’s most populous state with the irreverence and liveliness that are the global hallmarks of the media mogul’s tabloids. 

CEO PROMISES ‘SNARKY’ AND ‘ENTERTAINING’ COVERAGE

Sean Giancola, CEO and publisher for New York Post Media Group, told Reuters on Wednesday that he believes California audiences will enjoy coverage he described as “snarky” and “entertaining.”

Asked what made him think a print publication could succeed when so many have closed in recent years, Giancola said he was confident readership would grow in due course. He said millions of people in California read the New York Post online.

The California paper’s content is also available online where engagement has been growing since Monday’s launch.

Giancola said copies are selling at $3.75 apiece in 678 West Coast newsstands – a higher price than the $2 for the New York Post that he ascribed to higher production costs. He said the plan eventually was to offer home delivery.

One of its features — Page Six Hollywood — is a West Coast edition of the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column led by editor Ian Mohr. Future plans include podcasts, newsletters and events.  

EXPANDED COVERAGE OF ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS PLANNED

“We now have a foundation here in LA, 80-ish people here in an office, closer to the entertainment business,” Giancola said. He promised expanded coverage on the business side of entertainment beyond celebrity news as well.

The front page of Wednesday’s paper featured the headline “LAWLESS” in large capital letters with the “LA” highlighted in red to emphasize the paper’s Los Angeles focus. In the story, a Post journalist described being attacked by protesters while reporting on a Los Angeles Police Commission meeting.

The story alleged that “radical agitators” disrupted the meeting, shouting insults at police and later confronting the reporter and shouting, “Are you scared yet?” The paper described the protesters as “anti-cop punks.”

Other topics included recovery efforts after the Pacific Palisades fires, a mass killing in Sacramento, and actor Sydney Sweeney’s launch of a lingerie line after she got in “trouble” last week for climbing the Hollywood sign and hanging a clothesline of bras from it.

At The Grove, an upscale Los Angeles shopping center, several people expressed enthusiasm for the new publication in a video the tabloid posted to Instagram on Tuesday.

“I’m happy to see that it’s in print, not just digital,” one person said.

Another called it a “dream come true” after buying the New York Post for 36 years as a New York resident.

Not everyone was impressed.

The paper teamed up on Wednesday with Yeastie Boys Bagels to hand out free copies and New York–style bagels from a Los Angeles food truck to mark its debut.

Outside the bagel truck, Nathaniel Smith of Los Angeles said, “I think Alexander Hamilton is turning in his grave. He started the New York Post, and I think the California Post is kind of a rag,” referring to the American founding father who launched the New York Evening Post in 1801.

Smith said he gets most of his news from X, formerly Twitter.

The Los Angeles Times remains California’s largest daily newspaper.

(Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Jane Ross; Editing by Howard Goller)