MUNISING, Mich. (WZMQ) – A popular news outlet serving the eastern UP, The Munising Beacon, is bringing its ownership back to the Upper Peninsula.
The Munising News was in publication for over 100 years in Alger County but closed its doors in the spring of 2021. A little over a year later, the Munising Beacon was formed to fill the void that was left behind and will go into print for the first time this September.
Starting out with audio news updates on Facebook, Beacon Editor Brice Burge helped in creating the Munising Beacon brand. With seemingly underwhelmed progress and low staff in its first year of publication, the Munising Beacon was bought from CherryRoad Media by the Munising Advisor last Sunday, July 30, with owners Dustin and Jill Denkins.
“It opened the door for somebody else to with that experience and that’s what the Denkins have been able to do with the Munising advisor and the Manistique advisor and they’ve got that print aspect locked down,” explained Burge.
Shipping costs, low internet coverage, and other challenges continue to surface when bringing a print-news product to the UP, however, with new ownership, Burge hopes to see bigger leaps of success in the near future.
“It’s a landmark opportunity that has honestly been a long-time coming and I’m very excited to finally see it come to fruition, but with that, there were also some challenges we had a lot of people say we’re gonna put trust in you,” continued Burge.
One of the least stressful tasks, Burge noted, is building the care that the Munising community has in its locally-printed news. Burge commented that Alger County is an outlier in different ways, and the news produced in the town helps to reflect that.
“Over half of our editions have some kind of story that says Alger County doesn’t fit in some premade box by somebody out of the area making a decision,” continued Burge.
Click here, for more information regarding the Munising Beacon.
