The news media world’s enfant terrible – or the “unconventional one” – is here. The California Post launched last Monday in Century City, bringing the storied New York conservative daily tabloid to the Golden State at last.
Celebrity gossip has always been the bread and butter for the 224-year-old publication since the New York Post’s Page Six took off half a century ago. The California Post didn’t pull any punches either: it set its sights on Hollywood from day one with a signature brash cover featuring the Safdie brothers split, headlined “Oscar Wild.”
The story on the sex scandal involving New York filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie accompanied a piece on a millionaire murder allegation in the same booklet; the latest update on Google and Apple Inc.’s eavesdropping lawsuits sit side by side with pictures of singer Charli XCX at Sundance Film Festival in a sheer cloak. The curatorial style leaves a familiar scent: the Post vies for shock value and often gets exactly that.
Sean Giancola, chief executive and publisher of New York Post Media Group under News Corp., told the Business Journal that the Post sees a “news desert” in California for people seeking alternative narratives – an opportunity for the Post to fill the white space with “common sense journalism.”
“We’re having a great time, and the first three days have been very successful. We’re very happy with how things are going,” Giancola said Wednesday. “We’re going to stay true to our roots … The Post has been around for 200 years, and we’re looking to expand that brand to California. And this is probably just one of hopefully more expansions of our brand.”
The California Post arrived in the City of Angels when local newspapers were fighting an uphill battle to retain readers and advertisement sales, shredding newsroom jobs along the way.
The California Post is produced out of Fox Studios’ lot in Century City. (Photo by David Sprague)
Years of red ink on Los Angeles Times’ balance sheet and frequent layoffs plague the city’s largest newspaper. Billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s announcement last July to take it public through a Regulation A offering, or a “mini IPO” capping at $75 million, was also criticized by his staff and media analysts that he was “lowballing” the legacy publication.
“(The L.A. Times) is good reporting, but the overall package is just stumbling like a zombie through space,” said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer based out of Feig Finkel in Beverly Hills. “Maybe (California Post) would only bite off 10% of (L.A. Times’ subscribers), but every subscriber is a subscriber they can ill afford to lose … any effect at all on the L.A. Times will further darken the clouds over that building in El Segundo.”
The political tension in the air also provided fertile ground for the Post’s expansion. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been locking horns with President Donald Trump over issues ranging from tariffs to redrawing congressional district maps with Proposition 50. Newsom is also reportedly eyeing a 2028 presidential run. With the midterm elections, a gubernatorial contest and the L.A. mayoral election looming, some say that the California Post is here to make waves on the political front.
“Rupert (Murdoch) has ink in his veins. Rupert also has politics in his soul,” Handel said. “The political differences between MAGA and Newsom certainly created a very obvious space for not just an L.A. paper, but in fact, a California Post.
“The rivalry between Trump and Newsom,” he added, “almost demanded that the California Post come into existence.”
Gabriel Kahn, a professor at USC Annenberg school for communication and journalism, said California Post could be replicating News Corp. patriarch Rupert Murdoch’s modus operandi in other markets to “lambaste” politicians into a negotiation.
“They want to have a way to poke fun at and memeify Gavin Newsom ahead of a presidential run,” Kahn said. “This comes at a moment when the actions of the administration are at, so far, a ‘historic low’ in public opinion. So that’s a difficult moment to join the conversation.”
Still, the daily can carve out its niche even in a traditionally left-leaning market – after all, it has held fast in the Big Apple.
“The paper holds real clout in notionally liberal New York,” wrote The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham last May, as it pays attention to “perennially important local issues – mass transit, real estate, the ever-fluctuating fortunes of the Knicks – and leads substantive political investigations.”
At the same time, the Post’s hyper-local approach that won the hearts and minds of its readers in New York City may yet collide with another new player in the field. The LA Local just expanded its operation to 10 neighborhoods last month with a promise to zoom in on local issues with a laser-sharp focus, and with a much larger geographical area than New York City, the Post will have to find a balance between deep local reporting and statewide coverage.
“I think they’ll be hyper local around the state capital and wherever else you can find statewide politicians,” Handel noted. “I don’t think they’re going to be hyper local across the state unless they really are planning to invest in a way that would be surprising for a newsroom these days.”
The Post – undaunted – does not fret over this question.
“I know it’s covering a wide swath, but I think we’re up to the task,” Giancola said, pointing out that the 300-plus news staff in New York will help supplement the sister newsroom on the West Coast, which currently has about 80 employees under editor-in-chief Nick Papps.
“We’ll build high velocity and coverage that I think will meet the needs of the audiences,” he added.
Editor in chief Nick Papps leads a meeting on the eve of the California Post’s first edition. (Photo c/o News Corp.)
Then, of course, is the question of money.
Those tracking the Post have concerns over its longevity and profitability. New York Post thrives off the large public transportation ridership and the grab-and-go model in a dense metropolitan area. The car-reliant culture of L.A. and the larger state is a different beast.
“I think it will achieve a certain level of popularity, quite quickly, because it is brash, it is out there,” Handel said. “(But) they’re fighting some of the same things that the L.A. Times is fighting, which it’s just how disaggregated the population and the news reading population is in this state, and in Southern California in particular.”
Kahn pointed out too that the print edition is “a great way to lose money” and that he wouldn’t expect it to continue past a few months, despite print being part of the Post’s signature.
The California Post will focus on its online assets, Giancola said, which has been one of the ways New York Post stayed connected with its readers on the West Coast in the first place. The second-largest concentration of New York Post readers is right here in L.A. with 3.5 million unique visitors on its website per month, according to an August release from New York Post Media Group.
“We’re going to have a physical paper, but the impetus to building a business out here is going to lean a little bit heavier into the digital opportunity,” he said. “You have to think about the California Post as a multimedia and a multi-modal operation, and not (just) a print product.”
Moving forward, he shared, the Post will have more audio, video and podcast content, as well as a digital application while cultivating a large presence on social media. California audiences can expect extensive coverage on sports, entertainment and politics, and the Post will test out the waters for potential business-to-business ventures.
“We’ll say it,” Giancola said, echoing the tagline of California Post as it launched onto L.A.’s changing media landscape with what News Corp. Chief Executive Robert Thomson called “an antidote to the jaundiced, jaded journalism” that “sadly proliferated” in the market.
“We want to say what’s really going on in the state and across the country,” Giancola said. “I think that’s what Californians are looking for.”