Any thoughts on The New York Post?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks Rick Rosner for thoughts on The New York Post. Rosner characterizes it as a Rupert Murdoch property aimed at a right-leaning readership, and says Murdoch’s rumored “California Post” would pursue a similar niche. He argues California’s large conservative adult population and older-skewing traditional news consumers could support such a venture, while also generating attention by provoking liberals. The discussion shifts to James Cameron’s move to New Zealand, framed as a preference for social “sanity” and effective COVID governance, contrasting New Zealand’s high vaccination compliance with the United States’ lower and declining rates.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Any thoughts on The New York Post? 

Rick Rosner: The New York Post is one of Rupert Murdoch’s papers, and it is right-leaning news for stupid people in New York City.

Murdoch is now starting a California version called the California Post, which will be right-leaning, stupid news for dumb people in California.

The Los Angeles Times has been steadily shrinking and moving rightward under its current billionaire ownership. There may be a market for this, because California has about 40 million people, including more than 10 million adult conservatives. Not everyone in California leans left.

California conservatives also tend to be older than the state average. The typical news consumer—someone who regularly reads newspapers or watches cable news—is in their 60s. Gen Z and Gen X do not get their news from traditional media.

This could work. It would also exist essentially to irritate liberals every day, which amounts to free publicity. Rotten tomatoes. That is about all I have.

James Cameron has obtained New Zealand citizenship and is leaving the United States, calling it a country where people are constantly at each other’s throats, where science is being abandoned, and where the country would be in serious trouble if another pandemic emerged.

Jacobsen: What is his reason for choosing New Zealand over other places?

Rosner: He chose New Zealand because it is beautiful, and because the country acted rationally and effectively during COVID. That mattered to him.

After the pandemic hit, New Zealand eliminated the virus twice. The third time, a mutated strain broke through, but by then the country had a vaccination rate of about 98 percent. That level of public compliance is why he says he loves New Zealand.

By contrast, the United States reached roughly a 62 percent vaccination rate, and that figure has been declining.

These remarks come from Variety, based on Cameron’s appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger. He also already lives in New Zealand and produced the Avatar films there.

Bensinger remarked that New Zealand is stunningly beautiful, and Cameron replied that he was not there for the scenery but for the sanity.

This highlights a structural problem in the United States. The country is enormous—around 345 million people across 50 states, each with its own political system. Coordinating national responses is difficult, especially when powerful interests profit from division.

New Zealand, by contrast, has about 5.4 million people. Many of the world’s best-functioning countries have populations under 12 million—Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.

Estonia, in particular, has been unusually nimble in preparing for the future. These countries are small enough to unify their populations and experiment with policy. Singapore is another example of this kind of governance at scale.

Smaller countries tend to be more agile, and they do not have a Fox News ecosystem radicalizing 20 to 30 percent of the population.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

Photo by Amanda Marie on Unsplash

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