South Florida is getting its second gay
newspaper following the November closure of South
Florida Blade.
The Miami Herald's GLBT
reporter Steve Rothaus is reporting that Norm Kent will launch
South Florida Gay News.com in January.
“SFGN will be published and
distributed on Mondays, tabloid size, commencing in January of 2010,
and over 12,000 copies will be distributed to 300 plus locations in
Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties,” Kent said in a statement.
Kent, a local criminal defense attorney
and radio host, is the original publisher of Express Gay News,
which he sold four years later to Window Media, the mini gay
publishing empire whose decision to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy last
month sealed the fate of six GLBT newspapers, including the
Atlanta-based gay weekly Southern Voice, as well as the
Houston Voice, David Atlanta, South Florida Blade, Washington
Blade and 411
Magazine. After its 2003
purchase of Express Gay News,
Window Media executives renamed the publication the South
Florida Blade.
Both
in Washington and South Florida, former employees regrouped to keep
local gay news flowing. The former staff of the Washington
Blade churned out its first
edition of the DC
Agenda less than a week
after news broke of the paper's demise. And Mark's List
publisher Mark Haines quickly hired many former South
Florida Blade employees to begin
the Florida Agenda.
But
Publisher Mark Haines told the Miami Herald
that he did not believe two gay papers could survive in South
Florida.