Rupert Murdoch Plots a Newspaper War In L.A.

In 2012, The Los Angeles Times’ ailing Chicago-based parent Tribune Co. was exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a yearslong slog that its then-owner, brash real estate mogul Sam Zell, called a “deal from hell.” Rupert Murdoch reportedly took interest in snapping up the Times, but decided against a bid (the mogul was busy: he was aiming to cleave off less profitable papers the New York Post and Wall Street Journal into a separate firm from his more lucrative 20th Century studios business and Fox News).

Times change, but the 94-year-old’s interest in newspapers hasn’t. On Aug. 4, his Robert Thomson-run papers business, News Corp, unveiled a plan to bring the New York Post to the West coast with the launch of The California Post, a daily print tabloid headquartered in L.A. to be led by Nick Papps, a veteran of Murdoch’s Australian papers, by next year. Yes, the idea of an old-school newspaper war in L.A. — a metro area with 3.8 million led by one daily broadsheet, The Los Angeles Times, and no fiery tabloid — seems radically incongruous with media appetites in 2025, where executives are fretting about how to place TikTok-like vertical video templates on to news pages and AI-proof their business.

But there’s a lot of logic to News Corp’s bet: Back in Gotham, the Post arguably won the tabloid wars against its resource-constrained, progressive-minded The New York Daily News as it languishes under Alden Global Capital (a private equity firm often considered an archvillain to journalists for its perceived biz model of milking profits out of papers as it cuts editorial down to bare bones) as well as subway reads like amNew York and others that have faded away in the iPhone era. On the other coast, The Los Angeles Times‘ one daily print rival, The Daily News, which targets the San Fernando Valley and has a weekday average circulation of 26,056, is another one of the many papers owned by Alden.

The Post itself appears to have the highest average weekday print circulation (515,883 copies) in the country, above News Corp’s own Wall Street Journal (449,645), The Los Angeles Times (396,428) and The New York Times (276,108), per an Alliance for Audited Media tally as of June 13, thanks in part to News Corp’s continued effort in getting suburban households across the U.S. to pay for delivery, a national play most papers have abandoned. The question is if, say, Beverly Hills residents may be as receptive to getting The California Post dropped at their driveway as the Jersey Shore is to subscribing to the main version.

But it’s on the web where the Post — which has an on-the-ground metro reporting team as well as national political writers (with access to Donald Trump) and a large sports and entertainment Page Six staff — has a notable readership edge over rivals. With more than 50 million monthly unique visitors to its flagship url, it has tens of millions more readers than tabloids like The Daily Mail or TMZ and about 30 million more web readers than its soon-to-be rival The Los Angeles Times as of June, per Comscore figures, and it now competes with the CNNs and national broadcast news brands of the world as an alternative voice. (News Corp claims that the “second largest concentration of Post readers” is in L.A., with 3.5 million monthly uniques.)

With Rupert’s move, the ball now is in Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s court. Ever since ousting editor Kevin Merida last year and scuttling the paper’s Kamala Harris presidential endorsement, the billionaire biotech mogul has been musing about what to do with the brand — More conservative voices? Less opinion news? An AI-generated bias meter? A new effort to IPO? More streaming TV-like content? — while shedding staff and frustrating allies that had largely backed him when he was hailed as the paper’s savior in 2018 for his $500 million purchase from the strategically confused, publicly-traded owner Tronc.

In L.A. right now, despite missteps, Soon-Shiong’s paper has had a near monopoly on daily metro news coverage, and it has thrived in real-time breaking situations (the Palisades and Altadena fires; Trump’s activation of the National Guard during ICE protests). It’s outlasted alternative voices in the region that once covered breaking news (LA Weekly), has been the default option for City Hall coverage and accountability reporting and sourcing on law enforcement and still publishes a suite of local community papers spanning from Burbank to Laguna Beach.

That SoCal monopoly may now be under threat by a well-capitalized machine run by Fleet Street veterans. (Ironically, as the Post travels West, it also needs to contend with U.K. news brands like the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and The Independent setting up shop across the Atlantic.) The last time that L.A. got a major newspaper launch was when the Orange County Register‘s print-focused, libertarian owner tried opening up a broadsheet in the city called the Los Angeles Register in 2014. That Register was geared to report what its owner blandly described as “community-building information about local activities” and it lasted just months before it shuttered.

There’s reason to think The California Post — with an expected Murdoch editorial slant of outright opposition to the city and state’s Democratic leadership, a big Page Six presence on the red carpets of Hollywood Boulevard and a sports crew that delivers daily grist on the Lakers and Dodgers — has a better chance of sticking around longer. Just like the New York Post thrives as a foil to the stately New York Times, reveling in poking its staid rival for any minor controversy inside the halls of its Eighth Avenue skyscraper, there’s a good bet its offshoot trains its sights on happenings at the Times itself in El Segundo. The question may be if Soon-Shiong has a plan to defend his turf.