California is a ‘news desert’ says Post editor-in-chief Keith Poole as new title launched

California may be the home of big tech but News Corp is hoping that the state will support a newsbrand grounded in 20th century media technology.

The California Post is a new localised print edition and online destination for the New York Post. Post group editor-in-chief Keith Poole and California Post editor-in-chief Nick Papps explained the thinking behind launching a newspaper against a backdrop of declining print and digital audience numbers.

The newsbrand is being staffed by between 80 to 100 people, with reporters based in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego. The main newsroom is on the Fox studio lot in LA (as Fox is also owned by News Corp).

On Friday, around 20 jobs were still being advertised including crime reporters, politics reporters, audience development specialists and photo editors.

The launch, which has been in the works for the best part of a year, is being led by New York Post editor-in-chief Keith Poole, a British former Sun deputy and digital editor, and Nick Papps, who joined the California Post as editor-in-chief in August from News Corp Australia’s Herald Sun where he was weekend editor. Barclay Crawford, formerly editor of the Daily Mail’s operations in Australia and then the US, is deputy editor-in-chief.

Poole and Papps spoke to Press Gazette from Los Angeles on Friday as they prepared to launch the new brand on Monday.

Poole said the aim is “not just being a local newspaper or a local site” but for people in California “to come to our paper, app, homepage or social channels to get not just their local news – but all of their news”.

He added: “We attempt to do that with the New York Post. We are a national brand now, particularly digitally, and in print we are the third largest newspaper [in the US]. So this is really just an extension of that, where we can offer in-depth local news with everything else going on in the world.”

The California Post will be able to use national and international politics, news, sport and opinion coming out of the New York office.

Papps added that the New York Post already has a “huge audience” in California that the new brand can build on.

He said more than three million people in LA and over seven million in California go to the New York Post every month so “we know there’s an appetite out there, an audience out there that we can build, and they love what the New York Post does already”.

The launch is being backed up by a huge marketing campaign to reach new people. But Poole said: “What we’re really trying to drive is all of those people who already visit us, giving them a direct destination, whether it be in print, whether it be on app… and an especially curated California Post homepage. And then once they go there, they’ll start to derive a habit, and then we can deeply engage them.”

Poole said the business case for the California Post stemmed from “what’s happening with Google referrals or third-party traffic over the last couple of years,” referring to widespread declines. “We’ve seen, obviously, the rise of AI and that will start to eat into referral traffic, or traditional page-view traffic, again from third parties.”

[Read more: Global publisher Google traffic dropped by a third in 2025]

Recent News Corp financial results have noted falling traffic at the New York Post, for example down 9% from 103 million unique users in September 2024 to 94 million a year later according to Google Analytics. Meanwhile, according to Similarweb, the New York Post received 93.5 million visits in December, down 34% year on year.

But Poole said: “We’ve seen in New York that our direct audience is very engaged. They choose to come to us. We don’t have to rely on social media platforms or search platforms.”

Some 55% of the New York Post’s worldwide visits in December came directly, with 28% from organic search, according to Similarweb. Some 62% of total visits to the site since February 2024 were direct.

‘We’ve got a very long-term plan here’

Asked how quickly the new paper needs to wash its face financially, Poole said: “Obviously, we’re all going to be trying as hard as we can to bring the revenue as quickly as possible, grow the audience as quickly as possible, but we’ve got a very long-term plan here… we’re not just going for quick hits.

“We’re here to build a substantial, permanent business and with that comes investment, and with that comes having to grow commercial relationships and partnerships, which take time.”

He added: “Put it another way, it took 221 years for the New York Post to turn a profit. We believe that the California Post can do it a bit quicker.”

The New York Post has reported three consecutive years of profitability starting from the 2022 financial year.

Papps spoke about how useful it is to have “the power of News Corp behind a venture like this,” including when encouraging journalists to come aboard. “People know who News Corp is. When we commit, we commit and we’re all in on this, and that’s been really significant for us as a brand.”

Poole said News Corp had identified California as a “news desert. I think it’s got one of the lowest professional journalists per capita in the country, despite being the second biggest media market.”

He added that the New York Post Group knows “how to cover big cities, big states, blue states, blue cities, and really connect with the populations there in a way that we believe others can’t.

“It’s the way we tell our stories from a common sense lens, putting the reader first, and also with our wit, our brevity and with our punch.”

Papps said the new paper will have “all the DNA of the New York Post” but with a “California lens on everything that we do…

“The issues that matter are affordability, homelessness, crime, traffic… LA and California is quite a disparate big area we’re going to be covering. We are identifying those issues that connect people and will bring the audience to us.”

He claimed that other news publishers in California – which most prominently include the Los Angeles Times – are “not putting the readers first in everything they do” and that “there have been a lot of declines in the media industry here.

“We’re obviously investing because we believe in it, and that’s giving us an enormous opportunity to tell those stories that others are just either not interested in or not resourcing.”

Papps said sports and opinion will also be a key part of the offering, noting that “sports is a great way to connect with people, no matter who they are, where they are”. The sports team is currently made up of ten people, with aims to double that by the start of the American football season in September.

And he said it is important to be “pro-California and pro-Los Angeles… yes there’s challenges, but the really important thing when you’ve got a market like this is that you find a way to celebrate all the great things about this place here.” Papps previously lived in LA when he was a correspondent for News Corp’s Australian titles in 2004 to 2006.

The California Post is also launching its own Hollywood newsletter version of Page Six, the New York Post’s celebrity and entertainment news column.

Poole noted: “Obviously this town is still very much based on the entertainment industry so we’re really looking forward to disrupting that space – not just with our eye on celebrity goings on but also the business of entertainment, the power players, the movers and shakers, who eats where, who’s talking to who, all of those sorts of things. I think we have a real opportunity there as well.”

The California Post’s first front page centred on director brothers Josh and Benny Safdie and why they mysteriously ended their professional partnership.

‘Print isn’t dead’: Why California Post launch isn’t digital only

Print is a key component of the launch and the newspapers will be available via home delivery, newsstands andat transit hubs for $3.75. Where the New York Post has previously been available in California, it will change to the local edition.

Poole said: “Our front pages are world famous, and they have social currency… and the paper is the real heart and soul of what the New York Post and now the California Post will be about. And so it’s a really important part of our brand.

“Print isn’t dead… it’s just a very important part of what we do, and it’s a very fun thing to do. We can’t wait for many years of California Post front pages to be out there, shared, commented upon, collected.”

California Post aims to be ‘indispensable to people’s lives’

Asked what the pair think their biggest challenges will be, they said it will be reaching their new audience in the first place.

Poole said: “I would say I am very confident that people will very much enjoy the stories that we produce, the stories that we tell, and our view of things. We’ve worked very hard here on the product. I think, obviously, it’s a very noisy environment online. So I think for us, the biggest challenge is just being able to cut through the noise and get people to experience us. I’m sure that once we get them through the proverbial door, they will really enjoy what what we’re doing.”

Papps added: “We’re going to be partners with our audience. We’re walking shoulder to shoulder with them in life in California, and that’s really important. We’re not in an ivory tower. We’re not preaching. We’re not writing for other journalists. We’re writing for the people of California and serving the people of California.”

In one year, Papps added, they want to be “deeply engaged with the California audience, the place they go to first every morning, several times a day, and to be playing our role in telling the stories of this great state and this great city, and to be entertaining people, bringing joy and fun to their lives and being indispensable to their lives”.

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