The New York Post newspaper, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. media empire, has announced it will launch The California Post, a new, Los Angeles-based daily tabloid newspaper, on Monday, Jan. 26.
The California Post, a seven-days-a-week, digital and print newspaper for the Golden State, is expected to mimic the screaming irreverent headlines, celebrity gossip and conservative political bent that are found in the Big Apple edition.
“It’s time to hold the powerful to account and start fighting for hard-working Californians,” The California Post editor-in-chief Nick Papps said in a statement. “The California Post will be a game-changer across news, sports, opinion and entertainment.”
“We’ve assembled a crack team of reporters at our new newsroom on the Fox Lot in Century City and their mission is tell the stories others won’t or can’t.,” California Post promotional statements said. “They will be at the center of all we do, not the elites, the powerful or the corrupt.
“From January 26, we will be setting the agenda, entertaining and disrupting the status quo. People are tired of legacy media, they want change, and that change starts on January 26. We will be proudly representing the values of everyday hard-working Californians.”
In August 2025, NYPMG announced plans to launch The California Post in early 2026. At the time, it said 90% of NYPost.com digital readers live outside of the New York media market. Also, NYPMG said that Los Angeles is home to the second largest concentration of Post readers, with 3.5 million monthly unique visitors and 7.3 million across the state.
The New York Post, regarded as the nation’s most popular tabloid, is known for its relentless and skewering approach to reporting, including large-font, memorable front-page headlines, such as “Headless Body in Topless Bar” in an April 1983 crime story about a decapitation of a woman at Herbie’s Bar in Queens, N.Y.
In recent years, the New York Post has become an influential player in national politics, including stories on “wokeness” and other culture-war pressure points, as well as breaking the Hunter Biden laptop saga.
“This is the next manifestation of our national brand,” said Keith Poole, editor-in-chief of The New York Post. “California is the most populous state in the country, and is the epicenter of entertainment, the AI revolution and advanced manufacturing, not to mention a sports powerhouse. Yet many stories are not being told, and many viewpoints are not being represented.
“With The California Post, we will bring a common-sense, issue-based approach to metropolitan journalism. We’ll tell the stories that our readers care about the most, but others overlook, and we’ll do so with clarity and our trademark conviction, across print, digital and the platforms where audiences live today.”
Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, The New York Post is the nation’s oldest continuously-published daily newspaper. Hamilton started the newspaper as a platform to defend his policies and criticize Thomas Jefferson and his allies. As the country’s first treasury secretary, Hamilton was an author of the Federalist Papers. He died in July 1804, the victim of a duel at the hands of the Vice President Aaron Burr.
PRSA honors public relations professionals at the Bernays Awards
Intesa Communications Group was top winner with eight awards — including a Best of Show — at the recent Edward L. Bernays Mark of Excellence Awards event hosted by the Public Relations Society of America San Diego-Imperial Counties Chapter.
The chapter said the awards celebrated the region’s outstanding public relations, communications and marketing professionals for campaigns managed in 2025. Recognized work included campaigns and tactics that incorporated research, planning, creativity, technical excellence and evaluation.
Intesa’s Best of Show award was for its hiring campaign with San Diego Workforce Partnership that nabbed $12 million in media exposure for the Gaylord Resort in Chula Vista. Categories for Intesa’s other awards included issues management, public affairs, events and observances, media relations, videos and DEI.
Other top winners included UC San Diego University Marketing and Communications with five awards, City of Carlsbad with four awards, and InnoVision Marketing Group with three awards — including a Best of Show.
Entrants with two awards apiece included the UC San Diego Health, County of San Diego, Amplified Impact Partners and Nuffer Smith Tucker.
Michelle Brubaker, director of media relations and communications at UC San Diego Health, was presented the 2025 Deborah Baker Public Relations Professional of the Year Award.
“This recognition is truly a career highlight for me and means so much both professionally and personally,” said Brubaker. “As a mom who had her two children at UC San Diego Health and later all of my breast cancer treatment, I have a unique perspective in promoting the life-saving care provided to patients that I received first-hand.
“My team has the privilege of sharing new treatments, surgeries, groundbreaking research and inspiring patient stories so the community can make informed health care decisions, and we do not take that responsibility lightly.
“For me, it’s the human connection we form as a team that helps us become so successful in the work we do.”
Brubaker was the only special award recipient. Several special awards typically presented at the annual Bernays event were not presented on Jan. 6. They included PR Team of the Year, New Professional of the Year, Otto Bos Hall of Fame Award, Eva Irving Community Service Award and Diogenes Award for candor when dealing with the news media. A PRSA spokesperson said the chapter did not receive any submissions or enough submissions to present those special awards.
Student Bernays Awards were also presented. A Merit Student award was presented to San Diego State University and MKR Media for its work with the 7th annual Military Heroes event at San Diego Rock Church at Liberty Station. Also, a Mark of Excellence award was presented to SDSU’s School of Journalism and Media Studies for a spring 2025 semester capstone class project for the Eric Paredes Save-a-Life Foundation.
The chapter said 39 awards were presented Jan. 6 at the Encore Events Center in Kearny Mesa. The 39 total awards compares to the 70 awards presented in October 2023, and 37 awards presented in October 2024.
“It was such an inspiring night having the county’s leading public relations professionals together in one room as we recognized their incredible campaigns for our first event of the new year,” Jenny Mehlow, 2025 PRSA SD/IC chapter president said in a statement.
“We are truly fortunate to have such a wonderful network of professionals that celebrates each other, and one that serves as a safety net to catch us and lift us up when needed.”
This year’s award entries were judged by the PRSA Sunshine District, representing more than 1,000 public relations professionals from seven chapters throughout Florida. Submissions also were judged by PRSA Western District, the nation’s largest professional public relations association with more than 30,000 members and 10 regions nationwide.
The San Diego/Imperial Counties PRSA chapter is one of 100 chapters across the United States. It was founded in San Diego in 1959 and later expanded to include Imperial County. In 1995, the chapter merged with the Public Relations Club of San Diego.
The awards are named after Edward L. Bernays, who launched the field of public relations in the 1920s. Often called the “father of public relations,” Bernays’ history-making campaigns explain why people eat bacon with eggs, women smoke cigarettes and bank managers join civic groups. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century.
Bernays died in 1995 at age 103.
San Diego Press Club presents ‘An Evening with Dean Nelson‘
The San Diego Press Club will present “An Evening with Dean Nelson” from 6 to 7 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 20, over Zoom. Cost is free. The broadcast is open to the public.
SDPC said Nelson, founder and director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University, will share advice on current trends and explore the state of local journalism.
Nelson is the author of 14 books, including “Talking to Writers” and “Talk to Me: How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers.” He also is the host of PLNU’s annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea event.
For more event information and to RSVP, visit www.sdpressclub.org, or send an email to admin@sdpressclub.org. Following registration, attendees will receive the link to the event Zoom.
Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly in Times of San Diego.
