California Post brings brash New York-style tabloid news to the West
Coast
[January 27, 2026]
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Aiming to shake up the Golden State's media
landscape, the California Post launched on Monday with a new tabloid
newspaper and news site that brings a brash, cheeky and
conservative-friendly fixture of the Big Apple to the West Coast.
The Los Angeles outpost of the New York Post will be “digital first” —
with social media accounts and video and audio pieces — but for $3.75
readers can also purchase a daily print publication featuring the
paper's famously splashy front-page headlines. Perhaps most memorably:
1983’s “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”
“The most iconic thing about the New York Post, and now the California
Post, is that front page,” said Nick Papps, editor-in-chief of the LA
newsroom. "It has a unique wit, and is our calling card, if you like."
Monday’s inaugural edition goes straight at Hollywood during awards
season with the full-page headline: “Oscar Wild - Shocking truth behind
director Safdie brothers' mystery split.”
Page Six gets a Hollywood edition
Papps declined last week to reveal what stories his reporters were
chasing and what bombs the political columnists will throw in its first
editions. But he promised the growing staff of between 80 and 100 will
focus on issues important to “everyday, hardworking” Californians,
including homelessness, affordability, technology and “law and order.”
Of course, the Post's infamous gossip column will get a Tinseltown
version, Page Six Hollywood, that will keep a snarky eye on red carpets
and celebrity culture. And sports fans can expect comprehensive coverage
of the state's major league teams, as well as the upcoming World Cup and
Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Papps said.
“No matter what your politics are, sports is the great connector,” he
said.
Adding another title to Rupert Murdoch 's media empire, the California
Post will draw from and build on the venerable New York paper's national
coverage, which is known for its relentless and skewering approach to
reporting and its facility with sensational or racy subject matter.
“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,” Robert Thomson, chief executive of Post corporate parent
News Corp., said in a statement last year announcing the move. In
typically punchy Post fashion, he portrayed California as plagued by
”jaundiced, jaded journalism."
Journalism or clickbait?
The California Post could make an impact with its combative style and
conservative stance, said Gabriel Kahn, professor at the University of
Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism,
who added “our statewide press is boring as bathwater," especially when
it comes to politics. He expects a major target to be Democratic Gov.
Gavin Newsom, who has possible presidential aspirations and has become a
Republican boogeyman.
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The first issue of the tabloid newspaper The California Post is
displayed in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, Monday, Jan. 26,
2026. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
 Readers shouldn't anticipate that
the new publication will become known for breaking big stories
through old-fashioned journalism, Kahn said.
“There’s a crass cleverness in the way that tabloids present news
that actually works well on social media,” he said. “It could be
entertaining.”
Kahn doesn't expect the California Post will turn a profit. He
points out that the New York Post isn't a big moneymaker for News
Corp., but rather it serves another purpose, which is “to bludgeon
its enemies” and curry favor with people in power on the right.
Nonetheless, the corporation's New York Post Media Group, which
includes several media properties, is a player in both local and
national politics. It routinely pushes on culture-war pressure
points, and it has broken such political stories as the Hunter Biden
laptop saga. The Post has an avid reader in President Donald Trump,
who gave its “Pod Force One” podcast an interview last summer.
It launches at a volatile moment for the industry
However bold its intentions, the venture is being launched into a
turbulent atmosphere for the news business, particularly print
papers. More than 3,200 of them have closed nationwide since 2005,
according to figures kept by Northwestern University's Medill School
of Journalism. The online world spawned new information sources and
influencers, changed news consumers' tastes and habits, and upended
the advertising market on which newspapers relied.
California, with a population of nearly 40 million, still has dozens
of newspapers, including dailies in and around Los Angeles and other
major cities. But the nation’s second-most-populous city hasn’t had
a dedicated tabloid focused on regional issues in recent memory.
Meanwhile, venerable institutions like the Los Angeles Times have
been hit with major layoffs.
The launch of a paper edition of the Post “defies logic" as news
outlets in major metro areas are rapidly shrinking their print
footprint, said Ted Johnson, a media and politics editor for
Deadline in Washington, D.C., who reported in Los Angeles for 28
years.
“But Rupert Murdoch, his first love is print,” Johnson said.
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