MEDIA: California Schemin'

Even newspapers can have Hollywood ambitions. As the New York Post colonizes Los Angeles, its editors reveal big future plans, and, as LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT reports, onlookers are welcoming the California news wars

LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT

Lady Gaga. NYPD Blue. Bruno Mars. The original Batman. And now a tabloid newspaper.

On the Fox lot in Century City sits an iconic New York set, made to look like Lower Manhattan, that has seen many an act, many a scene, grace its fake mean streets. The set was originally built to film Hello, Dolly! at a cost of $2.25 million, making it one of the costliest at the time; so significant was the lot's history that when Bob Iger began wooing Rupert Murdoch for the Walt Disney Company to buy 21 st Century Fox, his son Lachlan was adamant that Fox keep that piece of real estate.

Early next year, the Fox lot will be the home of the California Post. And it will still be a scene—a massive undertaking from the Murdochs, and likely Murdoch pere's final major newspaper endeavor. The family and the editors may see opportunity as California's news desert dries up at the same time the state's political landscape and the rise of the tech oligarchy are among the biggest stories in America.

A target-rich environment of left-leaning politicians, celebrities, sports superstars, and Silicon Valley billionaires makes California ripe for tabloid treatment. And with the Olympics, World Cup, the rise of AI, and a governor's race to come, California will be a sexy story for the next several years. But will Californians—known for their liberalism-take to the new entrant that tilts conservative? And how much news will be covered, or will the California Post pack its pages by trolling Hollywood and needling Governor Gavin Newsom?

The California Post is not the first East Coast media entity to push west. Politico in 2023 expandedwithin California. The New York Times has also been adding resources on the West Coast. Before Bari Weiss was named editor in chief of CBS News, she founded The Free Press in Los Angeles.

But success is not guaranteed. News Corp's track record of innovation is far from stellar. In 2010 The Wall Street Journal launched its Greater New York section, hiring an estimated 35 journalists to cover the city, real estate, and local politics. But in 2021 the Journal shut the section. In 2011 News Corp launched The Daily, an iPad-only news outlet (lore has it the idea came to Murdoch in a dream) only to shutter it in 2012.

Poole and Papps are aiming to be disrupters in California, breaking big yarns that make noise. But first, "We are trying to see if the budget can stretch to a California Post golf cart."

And it wouldn't be the first time an East Coast entity has set its sights west and then folded like a cheap suit. In 1976 Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine, launched a publication covering the Golden State called New West (later, California?). It shuttered in 1991.

Journalists at the Los Angeles Times recently authorized their union to call a strike if needed, as the paper's embattled owner pushes forward with a novel plan to take it public. Then there are a flurry of journalism start-ups, including The San Francisco Standard and entrepreneurial local publications.

"I wouldn't say it is good news in this media environment that is already very polarized and polarizing," Dee Dee Myers, senior adviser to Newsom and an Angeleno, tells me. "That said, I don't think there is anything like the Post in California and Los Angeles."

It was one of the founding fathers who fathered the Post in 1801. Alexander Hamilton started the paper as a broadsheet. It was only after Murdoch bought it in 1976 that he transformed it into a tabloid that revels in crime, gossip, and sport.

"I think there are a lot of transplant New Yorkers who live in LA, and even though they don't agree with the politics, they miss that fun that only the New York Post can deliver," says Ankler Media CEO and Angeleno Janice Min, whose background as the former editor of both Us Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter gives her a unique insight into the Los Angeles media environment.

New York Post editor in chief Keith Poole is overseeing the project. He has become one of Murdoch's most trusted editors since he parachuted in from across the pond in 2021. Poole, 49, who shares a first name with Rupert and his late father, has become known as a boy wonder in Murdoch land.

Poole, who is British, and new California Post editor Nick Papps, who hails from Australia, are just the latest of Murdoch's Commonwealth mercenaries to invade the States. Murdoch has a history of looking within his empire for a trusted hand. He brought Robert Thomson in from The Times of London and made him managing editor of his new acquisition The Wall Street Journal. He brought Col Allan in from Sydney to run the New York Post. And in 2022 he looked again across the pond for a new editor in chief of the WSJ, subsequently moving Emma Tucker from The Sunday Times.

Papps, who describes California as a place "where dreams are made," helped orchestrate the move, associates say, as he knew the editor of his last paper, the daily Herald Sun, Sam Weir, wasn't going anywhere. He is believed to have gone to News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller to throw his hat in the ring for any gigs in America. When it came time to find an editor for the California Post, Papps's name was front and center. Editors in Australia were said to be blindsided by the move.

Papps previously served as News Corp Australia's Los Angeles correspondent from 2004 to 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor and the LA Lakers were enduring the breakup of the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal dynasty.

On a recent fall afternoon, Poole and Papps are in an upbeat mood in the New York Post newsroom. In his corner office on the 10th floor of the News Corp building, between sips of English breakfast tea, Poole reels off the coverage areas the California Post will hammer: criminal justice, big government, burdensome regulations, high taxes, homelessness, mental health.

"They are not really talked about there in any meaningful way by the outlets, intheway that we would do it at least," Poole says, in a not unsubtle jab at the Los Angeles Times.

Poole has an ambition for the New York Post to be "America's local paper," and it became profitable, he says, about four years ago. Now the bean counters at News Corp have devised a five-year business plan for the California Post, whose reporters will cover LA, Silicon Valley, and the capital, Sacramento.

Poole says the inspiration for the California Post in part occurred after the January LA wildfires, when he heard from people in LA and across the state who wanted his paper to hold local politicians to account. The Cali Post wouldn't be the first new media venture born out of some of the most devastating natural disasters to hit the state. Spencer Pratt lost his Pacific Palisades home in the wildfires. The devastating event inspired the episode "Rebuilding After the Palisades Fires" on The Fame Game, a podcast that Pratt cohosts with his wife, Heidi.

While the economics of launching a newspaper in 2026 don't make much sense ("LA is not a newsstand town," an LA-based communications consultant tells me. "Everyone drives. I think that's important."), LA media observers tell me they view this as an influence play.

You've got to have some fun as well." Papps tells me about his vision for the California Post. "LA is an amazing, amazing city and California is an amazing state." (You wouldn't know it from watching some Fox News shows, where prime-time hosts including Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity are vocal critics lambasting California as a liberal failed state.)

Murdoch has entertained the idea of launching a California edition of the Post for years, I'm told. News Corp CEO Robert Thomson and his chief strategy officer, Anoushka Healy, have also been instrumental in pulling the trigger on an LA version of the New York Post.

Poole, who likens his role leading the Post to a "priest giving confession," says that out of 100 million unique users a month who visit nypost.com, 7 million are from California.

"People come up and they are moderate Democrats or whatever and they are sort of like, T can talk to the editor of the New York Post about this thing or that thing without fear of being primaried or a social media campaign coming up against us,' " he says. "And it's similar in LA, and we hope we can give some of these people a voice or the confidence to say these things in public and take action themselves."

"I have thought for years there is a vacuum they could well serve, and I think it's a very smart move on the Murdochs' part," Los Angeles magazine co-owner Mark Geragos tells me. "I think they will do very well, and it's a rising boat that lifts all tides and LA needs it."

Digital media expert Michael Kassan, who runs 3 C Ventures, says he has the New York Post delivered to his home in LA. "The Post is my first read in the morning, so I do think there is an appetite," he tells me. "I'll be very blunt. I don't think LA currently has a proper newspaper, and I think the California Post can fill the void that I think we have felt from the last few years. The LA Times candidly isn't what it used to be, and I think there is a void that can be filled," says Kassan."And I think they've nailed the timing."

The Post has been inundated with interest (more than 1,000 people have inquired about jobs, Papps tells me), and it is advertising for tech rep orters, news feature writers, sports and digital editors, as well as political reporters. They will have journos in Sacramento and San Francisco as well as LA. They also have plans to highlight and celebrate Silicon Valley and LA innovation.

But they have intense competition by way of "the trades"— Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline—covering Hollywood and the entertainment industry. All three are owned by Jay Penske in what some view as a monopoly.

Add to that TheAnkler that Min helms with founder Richard Rushfield and "peerless" (as its cofounder Jon Kelly refers to its writers) Puck, whose founding partner and Hollywood correspondent, Matt Belloni, authors the publication's flagship What I'm Hearing... tip sheet and hosts the podcast The Town.

Poole tells me they even had an expression of interest for a job from someone purporting to be Belloni. "It turned out to be someone who was pranking him," he says.

And of course there will be California's own Page Six, with a particular focus on LA society, Hollywood, and the business of media. Page Six editor Ian Mohr will move to LA to helm the column that will pit him against his former employer The Hollywood Reporter.

Papps and Poole say they have been warmly welcomed in LA, snagging a reservation at Jeff Klein's exclusive Tower Bar, where maitre d' Dimitri Dimitrov told Poole he was a massive fan of the New York Post.

Dimitrov's declaration that the Post is a favorite read rams home the dire state of the Los Angeles Times. Bringing the Post west will see it go head-to-head with a paper that is widely viewed by many Angelenos as punching below its weight.

"There has always been competitioneven The New York Times tries to come out here," Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong tells me after I ask him if he welcomes the California Post setting up shop on his doorstep. "The Washington Post comes out here. The idea of the trusted brand out here is the LA Times. "

But the Times has been ravaged by layoffs in recent years, and Soon-Shiong caused many subscribers to cancel by failing to endorse Kamala Harris for president.

'I'll be very blunt. I don't think LA currently has a proper newspaper, and I think the California Post can fill the void that I think we have felt from the last few years."

Soon-Shiong says while News Corp is coming west, he is planning on going east, expanding in New York and DC.

He is redoubling his focus on the Los Angeles Times, bringing its newsroom and the LA Times Studios together with gaming and production businesses under one umbrella through the Los Angeles Times Media Group.

Demonstrating that it is a work in progress, in July Soon-Shiong announced on The Daily Show his plans to take the Los Angeles Times public over the next year, much to the dismay of many in his newsroom.

"When you go public, we will democratize the offering so that really it doesn't just go to the institutions," he tells me. "I think you saw Jon Stewart, who said, I'd love to invest. I'd love to be a shareholder oftheLA Times, and I said I'd love you to."

The California Post is not the only new entrant to the state's news market. Vanity Fair has learned that former Los Angeles Times masthead editor and former Slate editor in chief Julia Turner is teaming up with former Crooked Media COO Sarah Wick and her sister, Pulitzer-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Julia Wick, to launch a new for-profit local media company.

The trio plan on hiring a small team for their digital offering, which will encompass magazine-style journalism with a strong community focus.

The project, which will include newsletters and audio, will use a subscription model (though some content will be free; some behind a paywall), and the group is wrapping up a small funding round for launch, I've learned.

Then there is The San Francisco Standard, which has a tabloid flair to it, financed by venture capitalist and philanthropist Michael Moritz.

"You are not always going to get what you want in there, and clients and talent will be unhappy," the communications consultant tells me of their impressions of the California Post based on their interactions with the New York Post. "But it also drives culture and the Zeitgeist in a way."

California politicians continue to rise to national prominence: Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom.

But Californians, particularly local government officials such as LA mayor Karen Bass, have never been covered the way the New York Post covers local news.

The Post's unrelenting campaign against Zohran Mamdani, now the mayor-elect of New York, has included blistering front pages with screaming headlines such as "EVERY 'MAM' FOR HIMSELF" and "AFRICAN AMERICAN MEETS NATIVE AMERICAN" above "Mamdani and Warren in liars' summit."

"We will love to engage with the politics of the place," Poole tells me, adding that he welcomes Newsom and Bass to a California Post editorial board meeting. "We have social media jobs going if he fancies it, if it doesn't work out," Poole jokes of Newsom and his expected run for president.

"And obviously we are often cast in a certain light, but again we have succeeded in a very blue city and blue state because our readers understand—the people that actually read our products, our newspaper and our website and our stories—they understand that we don't do things in a blue or red blindly partisan way. We prosecute the issues. We endorsed a Democrat mayor last time round," Poole says in reference to Eric Adams, who was indicted for corruption, only to have the charges dropped. (Adams has denied any wrongdoing.)

"Many people have felt they can hide in LA, and the California Post can make characters out of personalities in LA," Min tells me.

While New York is a community where Adams and Bill de Blasio are household names, Los Angeles is a series of neighborhoods that don't talk to each other and don't pay as much attention to local politics.

That different paradigm may be a stumbling block for the California Post. If residents struggle to even know the names of their city council members or the contenders to replace Newsom as governor, will the puns still be fun?

"I think the opportunity to have more voices heard, I support that," Soon-Shiong tells me. "I don't think there should be a reason there should be a single voice.... I welcome the opportunity for anybody to have their voice heard in California."

For Murdoch, who has property in California and loves newspapers, bringing his beloved New York Post to the state has been years in the making.

With his vineyard nestled in the Santa Monica mountains, he is watching the project closely. Even at 94, he still has newspaper ink pumping through his veins.

"He is very excited about the product and what we are doing," Poole tells me. "He obviously knows LA and California and the areas and the processes and the issues very well; it's been very good to get an education about some of how things work and the history of the place, but I think similarly Lachlan and Rupert are extremely supportive and very much looking forward to a New York Post-type product in the California market."

Poole and Papps are aiming to be disrupters in California, breaking big yarns that make noise. But first they need a quintessential Hollywood executive mode of transportation.

"We are trying to see if the budget can stretch to a California Post golf cart," Poole tells me. "We don't feel like we've arrived in LA unless we've got a golf cart to get around the lot."