News Corp, which is owned by right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, announced on Monday it plans to launch a California tabloid similar to its New York Post. With the announcement, it is highly likely that the Post and Murdoch intend to bring the racism, misinformation, and just overall shoddy journalism that have been a highlight of the New York paper for decades to the West Coast.
The Post’s California launch is an attempt to bring right-wing media influence to a solidly Democratic state which has been a stalwart power base for the Democratic Party. Murdoch has owned the Post since 1976, but despite a steady stream of right-wing propaganda and advocacy, both the state and city of New York have remained solidly blue, consistently backing Democratic candidates including former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
In fact, the Post’s attempts to smear Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani with racist attacks have been unsuccessful so far, as he cruised to victory in the June primary and seems well positioned to win the general election in the fall.
In addition to the Post, Murdoch is most notable for owning Fox News Channel, which has for 28 years been a leading source of right-wing propaganda, racism, misogyny, fake news, and attacks on liberals and Democrats. In 2023, Fox was forced to pay out nearly $800 million in a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for promoting pro-Trump lies in its coverage of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden.
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Murdoch owns a network of influential right-wing newspapers throughout the world, including in his native Australia and in the United Kingdom. His U.K. papers were involved in an embarrassing scandal where journalists in Murdoch’s employ at the News of the World hacked into a murdered teenager’s voicemails, which they then used for salacious tabloid stories that interfered in the police investigation into the case.
Murdoch’s papers have paid out settlements to the teenager’s parents as well as to Prince Harry for hacking into his phone.
Domestically, the New York Post works in concert with Fox News to push conspiratorial and made-up right-wing stories meant to attack and undermine the Democratic Party, liberals, and the left in general. The Post has published disgustingly racist attacks, like the 2009 cartoon that portrayed then-President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee shot by police.
When the Post isn’t operating as an arm of the Republican Party or as a mouthpiece for the conservative movement, it publishes categorically false reports masquerading as journalism. After the 2013 terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, the Post printed a picture of two men who it identified as “Bag Men” and suspects in the attack. The men had nothing to do with the incident and later settled a defamation lawsuit they brought against the paper.
California already has a major news outlet in the grip of right-wing opinion. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, is pushing the paper to the right. It began with his decision in 2024 to pull an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, and earlier this year he hired MAGA operatives to pack the editorial pages with pro-Trump opinions.
Murdoch has an international reputation for unethical, bigoted media. Now he wants to bring his brand of business into the California sunshine.