(To enlarge image hit on it.)When you pick up the "Miami Beach News", a product of "Community Newspapers" you had better realize what entity is writing it. As I was reading it, I said to myself, these sound like ads. Well, I was right. The Chamber of Commerce (or as I like to call them - The Chamber of Charlatans) is writing "Miami Beach News". The Charlatans have been busy spreading misinformation and spending lots of bucks against Amendment 4.
I asked Pat Wade, who published the "Redland Country News" in cooperation with the "Community Newspapers" for 8 years, what she thought of the Chamber's involvement in this newspaper. She said: "If the Chamber of Commerce is doing it, it must be filled with a bunch of one-sided crap." I looked it over, nothing controversial, but it was pretty crappy. Pat was spot on with her adjective.
I was curious about how "Community Newspapers" run their Miami publishing empire (I use the term loosely) so I asked Dr. Wade. She said the Miller brothers pay for the printing, get the ads, and control the layout although she had input on the layout. She had a group of people doing the writing, taking photographs and the delivery - all worked for free. They published the Redland paper 6 times a year and each edition was about 8,000 copies. She and her group distributed the paper to individual homes -- it took 3 or 4 people a few days to deliver them all. She said she bought her own plastic bags and folded each paper into them. And I thought blogging was hard. Pat Wade you are a saint to do all that work for the community -- not making a penny off it. I guess the Miller Brothers made a bit of money over the years, not enough. They shut it down.
The Chamber of Charlatans' "Miami Beach News" might run similarly to Pat's paper, except NEWS was conspicuously absent from the Chamber's rag. It contained a lot of what you would expect in a Chamber publication: Crap....and drivel.
13 comments:
That is unfortunately the future of the mainstream press. Fox News writ very very small.
How does anyone get real unbiased news any more? It is impossible ou there. Everyone gets interpreted news. Critical thinking is dying.
Miami!
If anyone was expecting "real" news from this publication, you must be out of your mind. I remember a post of a couple of years ago about the Aventura booster rag that included the same kind of shock that it existed solely as a vehicle for local advertising and "good" business news. These papers don't purport to do anything else. At least they may help you find a dentist or real estate agent.
Every town in the country has one of these, so I think the drama is a bit misplaced.
Drama what drama? You might have run into these publications before and have the skinny on them but we educate ALL our readers to make sure as many people as possible are educated on the INS and OUTS of our community. Because you know doesn't mean that others do...
Hmmm. It looks like that the anti-miller anonymous really really doesn't like them
Do you know what no vendettas means?
It's a Community - as in the people in the community - newspaper and not purporting to be the NY Times or even the Miami Herald.
Is Miller's Community Newspapers receiving funding from Miami-Dade County (aka the taxpayers) for the 2010-2011 budget cycle? They have in past years. I heard the item was pulled from the County Commission agenda. Why should county taxpayers subsidize this business? When you pay your property taxes in November remember that the Miller brothers are getting a piece of your hard-earned tax dollar.
The "drama" is well placed. Community News and the Herald have an agreement for the local section of the Herald. What that means in our town is that there are fewer and fewer Herald produced articles in the neighbors sections and more and more CN drivel. How much of local Herald coverage is dictated by this agreement? CN's owners manipulate local politics by publishing "stories" in their personal interest.
community news is nothing more then a series of press releases holding together advertisement.
the publisher and editor brother have made money by investing in real estate and mortgages for many years, so the economic engine of their families is a sorry excuse for journalism.
Bravo on this post. I knew these papers were pro-business fluff stories, but to be directly controlled by government entities is a low-grade shock to me. The Miller brothers have advertised freelance work for the paper with a compensation of $20. Twenty bucks won't rid you of the stain of working for those publications.
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