A hometown Miami newspaper has finally made the leap into the 21st Century — and it only took it 25 years.
Residents of Miami Springs, a small city in central Miami-Dade County, have for the past 40 years flipped through the pages of the River Cities Gazette for the results of the latest high school football game, or the latest happenings from city hall.
But, as of this fall, the community paper is no longer in circulation.
The last print issue of the River Cities Gazette went out at the end of August, and on October 1, the publisher will launch its first website in the publication’s four-decade history: Rivercitiesgazette.net.
“ Well, my father is a very old school gentleman and he became very set in his ways. For a long time he didn’t want a website,” said Brad Curtis, publisher of the River Cities Gazette.
Brad’s father, Tom Curtis, founded the Gazette in 1985. Tom bought the paper when it was called the “Miami Springs Shopper,” primarily an advertising tool, and used it to expand his growing stable of football digest papers.
Tom got into publishing after a knee injury ended his career as a football player for the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins in the early 1970s.
He changed the name to the River Cities Gazette in honor of the three cities in its coverage area: Miami Springs, Medley and Virginia Gardens, known together as the River Cities for their proximity to the Miami River Canal.
In the past year, Tom, now 77, passed the reigns onto his older son Brad, who has brought the paper into the digital age with a social media page and most recently the website.
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“It's a sad day, but it's a happy day, and I'm so proud of my son who is taking this on. If Brad hadn't taken the ball and [made] rivercitiesgazette.net, we would’ve just been gone,” Tom told WLRN.
Budget constraints turned the once weekly newspaper into a monthly publication in the last several years. Brad said if the paper had continued as-is without evolving, it would’ve eventually gone out of business.
“ It's not the end of the River Cities, because it's the evolution. It's a rebirth. A freshening up process to get with the times,” Brad said.
The website will still publish stories monthly with bulletins about community events in Miami Springs and the surrounding cities along with a new “entertainment” section for local bands and music performances.
Also for the first time, the website will translate articles into Spanish, something Brad is excited about to cater to the city’s growing Spanish-speaking population.
As Miami Springs is a city with a high proportion of residents 65 and older, Tom and Brad both admit it will take time for regular Gazette readers to get used to the new format, but hope they’ll join the paper in the modern day.
“ This is a transition and it is gonna take a little time, but I think Miami Springs people will appreciate it. And older folks like me, we're gonna learn, you know, we're gonna learn how to use it,” Tom said.
