Issue Media Group is excited to announce the relaunch of its online, community-informed, digital publication in the Upper Peninsula.
UPword will focus on innovation, talent, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and community development, while featuring U.P.-based talent.
Prior to the relaunch, Second Wave Upper Peninsula ran from 2010 to 2018. The relaunch and rebrand of this publication comes at a time of growth and innovation in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The web platform will be connected to Issue Media Group SecondWave media network of sites to reach a broad audience in Michigan.
UPword will focus on
what’s next for the Upper Peninsula. Each week readers will experience feature stories, profiles, news items, and original photography highlighting innovative entrepreneurs, talented people, dedicated organizations, and devoted community builders.
To help inform coverage and foster connections,
UPword will also convene quarterly listening sessions from a cross-section of community leaders and organizers, entrepreneurs and artists, and public and private leadership. Additionally,
UPword will identify and lift up the innovative people leading impactful work to support talent retention and attraction efforts.
“Economic and community development organizations from across the Upper Peninsula are really excited about the partnership with IMG and to finally have a critically important regional platform to give a consistent and constructive voice to the virtue of living, working, and doing business in the U.P.,” says Marty Fittante, CEO of InvestUP.
“Leaders from across the Upper Peninsula, especially those in the private sector, have long sought the need for a positive, respected, and sustainable
way to share our unique story of why the UP is so special and works to attract the next generation of talent to the Region. I am confident that this partnership between local economic development and workforce development organizations, higher education, and IMG is just that platform.”
"Issue Media Group is excited to launch this effort and welcome the Upper Peninsula into our growing media network,” says Brian Boyle, CEO of Issue Media Group. "There is real transformation and talent-led energy shaping the future of the U.P. so we look forward to documenting that story and sharing it locally and nationally.”
Issue Media Group is honored to produce
UPword with a coalition of partners, including: Invest UP, Operation Action UP, Lake Superior Community Partnership, Northern Michigan University, Michigan Technological University, Enbridge, Dickinson Area Economic Development Alliance, FHL Bank (Indianapolis), Michigan Works!, and MyMichigan Health.
About Issue Media Group
Incorporated in 2005 in Detroit, Michigan, IMG operates a national network of online media outlets leveraging the power of solutions-based journalism to report on community change. Our publications aim to connect readers to their communities’ most visionary and innovative people, projects, businesses, and organizations – fostering civic capacity, improving understanding of key issues, amplifying underserved voices, and building community attachment during a time of local media decline.
We work with like-minded stakeholders across public, private, nonprofit, and grassroots organizations whose values and missions align with ours through an underwriting model of publishing. Our journalists connect with community stakeholders through regular listening sessions designed to build trust and shape authentic community stories.
IMG's work has been recognized and supported by leading journalism organizations nationally including INC Magazine, Knight Foundation, Columbia Journalism Review, Facebook, Lenfest Institute, Google, Solutions Journalism Network, Ground Source, and Society for Professional Journalists.