What would be reason enough for you to start a new website? A cause close to home you felt needed more attention? A lack of news coverage in your area?
The accessibility to Internet publishing is more readily available than ever, and the demand for information that's relevant and up-to-the-minute is higher than ever.
The U.P. has become home to several websites that are redefining the boundaries of media and online news, each contributing something different to the online scene of the region. Here, we've profiled some of them.
UpperPeninsulaNews.comTwitterFacebookYear started: 2010
One of the newest entrants into the U.P. media world is
UpperPeninsulaNews.com, created and owned by
Jason Edward White of Marquette. It's an aggregator of links from dozens of sites and news outlets that cover the U.P., and relevant links from state, national, and global sources.
White, an online entrepreneur and self-described computer geek, is no stranger to digital publishing, with plenty of other websites under his management, like
Michigan Social.
He says Upper Peninsula News came about in response to his own need to collect U.P. news, weather and blog feeds in one place. So it was something of a surprise when it became so popular in early 2010.
"I added up the traffic stats from my top 20 web sites and was surprised to discover that UPN achieved twice the number of page views as
Marquette Social--a site that had received a lot of media attention and I had put a lot of time and effort into promoting," he says.
White saw the site could fill a wider need, and began to link and promote it further, adding his own video news segments. Now, it has more diverse goals, like increasing exposure for the sites that UPN aggregates.
The ultimate mission is to strengthen regional connections to the state and world and draw more attention to local websites and issues, which should be successful, if the site's growth is any indication.
"We've let the lower half carry the weight of our state for a long time and it is my intention to take the efforts, successes and lessons that have helped the Upper Peninsula find new economic life and roll them over the Lower Peninsula like a giant, or second if you will, wave," White says.
Gotta like a guy who thinks so much like we do here at U.P. Second Wave. And White is far from done with creating new-media sites; in fact, today marks the launch of a downstate counterpart to UPN, appropriately called
Lower Peninsula News.com.
IronwoodInfo.comYear Started: 2007
Ironwood Info is a daily online news publication covering--you guessed it--the city of Ironwood, and surrounding counties Baraga, Houghton, Gogebic and Ontonagon, as well as Iron County in Wisconsin.
Founder Lou Bonagura is also the owner, publisher, editor, reporter, photographer and webmaster. He says the strength of the website is its immediacy.
"We have the ability to report on news events immediately, without waiting for the presses to roll tonight, tomorrow or two days from now," he says.
The area has a daily newspaper, but few other news outlets, and Ironwood Info sprang up as a nonprofit, independent news source focusing on events and issues that don't quite make the cut for print publications.
As is often the case in the media world, big news events drove the site to prominence, when a Labor Day weekend fire in 2009 destroyed a major part of downtown Ontonagon.
"We were the only news coverage for a day and we were two days ahead of the local press due to the three day weekend. Ironwood Info received 135,000 site visitors over three days. That was a turning point for us; our numbers have grown steadily ever since," Bonagura says.
He sees the future of the site heading toward more and smaller news stories--simply a function of the nonprofit nature of the site.
"We only have one-and-a-half people producing the site from sun-up to sun-up," he says. "Everything we do we do to support others and not ourselves. Amazingly, we have been appreciated for those efforts."
EUPNews.comFacebookYear started: 2010
Over in the east end of the U.P.,
EUPNews.com has had less than a year of growth and success, after starting out as an enterprise of
LSSU student Miles Williams last summer. Editor Scott Nason is also a student, and both will be graduating this spring--but have plans to continue publishing the site, which has been well-received in the eastern U.P.
Nason, who has a background in sports radio, says the site was created to fill a void in online news in the area.
"We started the site because we thought there was an avenue for another form of media in the eastern UP. There are just a couple of newspapers and that's about it; there really was no online forum for news," he says.
EUPNews.com has found its strengths in timeliness, and the ability to use more photos and information beyond the limits of traditional print publication, especially with sports coverage. Nason says that's something they'll expand even more into in the future.
"One of the things we're trying to do is connect it more to the local high schools, of which there are nine or 10," he says. "We want to promote athletic and academic achievements and really tie it in with the schools and the community."
Keweenaw NowTwitterYear started: 2001
Michele Bourdieu is no stranger to news in the Keweenaw Peninsula, having run
Keweenaw Now in its current incarnation on Blogger since 2007. Before that, it was under the auspices of KeweenawNow.com, which started up in 2001.
Editor and publisher Bourdieu says the mission of the site is to fill in some of the gaps left by traditional media coverage, especially on environmental issues and arts and culture.
"It is pretty much a labor of love," she says. "My basic priorities are to get the news out about environmental, sustainability and conservation issues, but we do also post a lot about arts and culture activities and also education issues."
Since the website's origins in local environmental events, other areas of coverage have become important to Bourdieu as well, like global issues.
Her goal for the next few years is to connect the website with more young people, through social media outlets, for one.
"I would like it to appeal more to young people, because it's their future we're talking about, and their environment," she says. "We have to keep reminding people about the rest of the world and how we're connected to it."
Kim Hoyum is a freelance writer based in the Upper Peninsula. She is a regular writer for several weekly and monthly publications and recently started her own travel blog. Hoyum is a graduate of Northern Michigan University where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in writing.