New Book: Sex, Lies, and Politics at Murdoch's 'New York Post'

They don’t call it “a newspaper of record,” but instead a paper of “wreckage,” and it has lived up to the name. Paper of Wreckage: An oral history of the New York Post, tells how the tabloid, one of Rupert Murdock’s early American purchases, disregarded journalistic standards but along the way covered some unforgettable stories.

Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo, themselves Post alums, conducted 240 interviews spanning 50 years of no-holds-barred journalism, celebrity scandals, serial killers, labor disputes, New York City, Rupert Murdoch and the rise of Donald Trump. The book is unputdownable.

The present-day saga begins in the waning days of Dolly Schiff’s ownership of the afternoon paper that skewed to the left of The New York Times, and then a mannerly publication but a money-losing one. In 1976, Murdoch bought the Post for $31 million, bringing with him a cast of Aussies and a whole new approach, including a gossip column with pithy takes contributed by staffers. The only question was what to call the column. Finally, because it anchored pages behind breaking news, they decided on Page Six.

Anna Quindlen (later a Pulitzer-prize-winning New York Times columnist) said, “The first day the Australians were in the newsroom, Neal Travis came to me and said, ‘Have we got an assignment for you.’ He gave me four or five items, one about Liza Minnelli. Two days later, he came to me and said, ‘Sweetheart, where’s the Liza item?’ I said I haven’t been able to nail it down. He said, ‘You don’t have to report it. You just have to write it.’ I thought, I am screwed. I hadn’t seen my future as a gossip columnist who didn’t confirm anything.”

https://www.postalley.org/2025/11/02/new-book-sex-lies-and-politics-at-murdochs-new-york-post/