Miami's Community Newspapers Welcomes MiamiHal

For more than 50 years, Miami's Community Newspapers has been putting the hyper-local into Miami area newspapers.  In the early 1970's, Ron Miller, a long-time South Florida media man, bought the business.  In 1982, he added his two sons (Grant and Michael) and they never looked back.

At present, Miami's Community Newspapers print 14 papers bi-monthly.  Weekly circulation is over 50,000.  And, you can pick up a community paper for free at a large number of restaurants, groceries, doctors' offices and high-traffic businesses throughout greater Miami.  The goal is to connect the community to local news and local businesses that, in turn, creates strong local commerce.

Grant Miller took me around for a tour.  Community Newspaper is located in South Miami, north of Larkin Hospital, in a sprawling building where everything, including the printing is done in-house.  47 employees generate the newspapers for each community about twice a month.  Large spools of paper come in...

...and all the local news is printed and sped off for distribution.  It is really a special sight to see the printing press in action.

I asked Grant what was his favorite story throughout the years. Miller could only narrow it to two.  The first was when his paper uncovered that the Pinecrest Village Manager a few years ago was paid for a full-year of disability when his contract only called for 90 days.  Grant felt that his paper served the Pinecrest residents well.  The second is the ongoing Palmer Trinity School issue in Palmetto Bay, which Miller said has been, and will continue to be, a focus for the paper until it comes to resolution.

And, as the title of this blog suggests, Community Newspapers is about to get a new section.  Beginning in a few weeks, yours truly will be a feature columnist.  I'll start in the Pinecrest Tribune, but hope to expand into other papers as well.  The topics of each column will be "what's going on in your area" and is likely to be called "Hal's Happenings".  Stay tuned!  I am excited for the oppportunity to serve the community...