Aug. 4 (UPI) — A daily tabloid version of the New York Post is heading west, parent company News Corp announced Monday.
The California Post, which will include staff based in Los Angeles, will debut early next year as a separate entity under the New York Post Media Group, the public company led by Rupert Murdoch said.
The expansion comes as circulation continues to decline among newspapers nationwide.
The California newspaper’s content will include a version of Page 6 now featured in the New York Post.
The New York Post displayed a mock images of Page 1 and the gossip page, including on Facebook
.
“Los Angeles and California surely need a daily dose of The Post as an antidote to the jaundiced, jaded journalism that has sadly proliferated,” News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said. “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. I am also pleased that [editor] Keith Poole’s remit is expanding, as he will now be responsible for covering not just New York, but California, the U.S., the world and, perhaps, Mars.”
Nick Papps, who has nearly two decades of editorial leadership, was named editor in chief of the California newspaper. He was New Corp Australia’s West Coast correspondent for three years.
“This is the next manifestation of our national brand,” Poole said. “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. Yet many stories are not being told, and many viewpoints are not being represented.
“With The California Post, we will bring a common-sense, issue-based approach to metropolitan journalism. We’ll tell the stories that our readers care about the most, but others overlook, and we’ll do so with clarity and our trademark conviction, across print, digital and the platforms where audiences live today.”
The Post Digital Network, with 90 million unique visits in June, attracts 90% of its readers from outside the New York media market.
Los Angeles, with 3.5 million unique visitors, and California, with 7.3 million, has the second concentration of Post readers. The newspaper circulates in South Florida but not as a separate edition.
Overall, there are 13 million digital news readers in the region, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, and TV and radio stations.
Newspapers’ circulation has been dramatically declining.
The Los Angeles Times was purchased by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, in 2018 for $500 million from Tronc. The purchase also included the San Diego Union, which was later sold to MediaNews, and several community newspapers.
Tribune Publishing, based in Chicago, had adopted the name Tronc in 2016.
Two weeks ago, Murdoch said he “would take the paper” public next year during an interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart.
The New York Post is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the United States, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801.
Murdoch purchased the New York Post in 1976.
News Corp, with revenue of $10.1billion in 2024, owns The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, papers in Britain and Australia, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network. Fox Corp owns the TV network with the Murdoch family holding 39% of the voting shares.
