Generative AI could no doubt deliver us an image of an eye-shaded 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch making final changes to the California Post’s first edition before a comp tamps it down with a mallet and a wood block.

Or whatever they’d do these days, probably without leaving home.

Either way, the gist seems to be that he’s doing it again: That’s right, Rupert Murdoch is launching another newspaper while he reckons the medium has 15 (or by now, 14) years left in it, “with a lot of luck”.

Mock-ups of an LA Post front appeared today, along with the news that “veteran” News Corp Australia journalist Nick Papps – currently weekend editor of the (Melbourne) Herald Sun – is to edit it, and that it will be a sister paper of the 224-year-old New York Post.

Launch date will be “early 2026”, perhaps in time for Rupert’s 95^th birthday on March 11.

Announcing the launch into a city it says is “fast becoming a news desert despite being home to nearly 13 million monthly digital newsreaders”, a group statement says Californians “need a media outlet dedicated to common sense, (and) clever coverage of the most important issues, many of which are ignored or dismissed by current print and digital outlets.”

We’re not sure what Patrick Soon-Shiong – who has owned the LA Times since 2018 – would say about that. Or Donald Trump for that matter.

Papps – and “a team of editors, reporters and photographers based in the state” will report to Keith Poole, current editor-in-chief of the New York Post.

More to the point, timing suits not just issues for the Trump administraton, but also upcoming elections – including that of state governor – World Cup football, and the 2028 Olympic Games.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson says city and state are “at a pivotal moment” and promises both “serious reporting and puckish wit”.

Content will appear “across multiple platforms and formats, including mobile and desktop sites, video, audio, social media and a daily print edition”. We haven’t heard yet who is to print it, but I daresay there’d be some surplus kit somewhere around the group ready for the task.

Which brings me to the current question of who’s going to print Australia’s biggest newspapers, with Nine’s Australian Financial Review reporting that parties were “poised to sign” a five-year extension after the current agreement expired on July 31.

Much has happened since 2020, when the print cooperation was first agreed, just a couple of months after News had sounded a death knell for about 100 print editions. A lot of newspaper presses – the AFR calls them “printers” but we’ll let that pass – have made their way to the scrapyard, for one thing.

News is now by far the biggest newspaper printer in the country – Nine has no capacity whatsoever – which leads us to wonder what would happen if News was to “take their bat and ball and go home”.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Mock-ups of the “puckish” California Post including this one featuring Sydney Sweeney – ‘The Post will also tackle cultural issues,’ it says – and another that leaves us wondering, ‘who is the guy in the deckchair’