Famed NY Post Gossip Columnist Richard Johnson is Coming Out of Retirement… to Join the Daily News

D Dipasupil/Getty Images

Richard Johnson, the famed former New York Post gossip columnist and longtime editor of Page Six, is coming out of retirement — for a job at the Post’s archrival.

He is joining the New York Daily News, according to Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo. Johnson, who retired in 2019 after four decades at the Post, will write a weekly gossip column for the Daily News.

“Two years off was enough,” Johnson told Pompeo. “I’m ready to get back to work.”

Pompeo’s scoop has another juicy detail about the Daily News, which is owned by Tribune Publishing, a newspaper chain bought by New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital earlier this year.

According to Pompeo, “Tribune’s previous management was planning to make the tabloid digital-only, according to someone familiar with the plans, but the print edition will remain intact under Alden.”

A source familiar confirmed to Mediaite that Alden reversed plans to shut down the iconic print edition of the Daily News.

The Tribune’s board was “on the verge of approving” a plan to eliminate the print version of the paper, the source said, but Alden “shut that plan down” after buying the publisher.

“They want to make it work,” the source said of the paper’s 102-year-old print edition.