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The Murdoch family celebrated the birth of a baby this week – the California Post, a fledgling US conservative tabloid newspaper – sister for the New York Post, cousin to Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
In doing so, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch have one-upped a conga line of billionaire businessmen in the procession to curry favour with Donald Trump.
Many turned up for Trump’s inauguration, donated to his campaign or had their companies stump up for the presidential library. Elon Musk even took a management position in the department of government efficiency.
But launching a Trump-friendly mass media publication is next level.
Murdoch has been in deficit in the Trump favour bank, with the media mogul and his News Corp the subject of a US$10 billion defamation lawsuit filed by the president over the Wall Street Journal’s reporting that he allegedly sent a “bawdy” 50th birthday letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The pair appear to have entered into a fragile peace pact of late, with reports late last year that Murdoch dined at the White House despite the existence of their legal teams battling it out in the background.
That said, Murdoch was notably absent from the line-up of investors to take a stake in the spin-off of the US division of TikTok – which was headed by another Trump-allied billionaire in Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Trump had previously called out Murdoch as a potential member of the investment consortium.
Meanwhile, to start up a printed newspaper, even one with a digital focus and a large 40-million strong addressable market, isn’t an exercise in profit generation, and it could be years before the California Post turns a profit.
Launching a print newspaper defies industry trends in which many printed newspapers and digital publications have failed over the past decade as news has been increasingly sourced through social media.
But it is a tactically brilliant move by Murdoch to beef up his right-wing conservative bona fides and political muscle, which Murdoch has used over the years to support his media business interests.
And picking a state that is a traditional Democratic Party stronghold led by a governor Gavin Newsom – the man tipped most likely to stand for democratic presidential nomination in 2028 – is Trump gold. Newsom, a likely key target of Murdoch’s latest paper, sued another Murdoch business, Fox, for defamation last year.
It also creates a mainstream media vehicle to take aim at Hollywood’s “woke” population, many of whom have often successfully curated the anti-Trump narrative.
The California Post, like its New York sibling, is being billed by its creators as “brash and cheeky”, which readers will recognise as code for thrill, outrage and headline-grabbing sensationalism – all with Murdoch’s trademark strong conservative twist.
When News Corp announced it was launching the new tabloid last year, chief executive Robert Thomson said California “surely needs a daily dose of The Post as an antidote to the jaundiced, jaded journalism that has sadly proliferated” and that the [California] Post will play a crucial role in engaging and enlightening readers who are “starved of serious reporting and puckish wit”.
If the New York Post is the template fashioning the Californian version, it’s worth remembering a taste of what’s in store.
Some of the more iconic headlines include – perhaps the most famous and quintessential New York Post headline – “Headless Body in Topless Bar”.
Then there is the 2014 entrant for the most callous headline – “Slumlord found burned in dumpster. Who didn’t want him dead?“, or the most controversial cartoon that appeared to depict president Barack Obama as a chimpanzee in 2009. The publication later apologised for the cartoon which featured two police officers standing over a chimpanzee they had just shot, with one officer saying, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”.
Who knows what’s in store for Newsom and the progressive Hollywood glitterati?
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