The Black Rock Beacon is a newspaper made by and for burners, or fans and attendees of the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada.
[2] While the Beacon founders said they were effectively fired,[4] the Burning Man organization claims it and the Gazette staff mutually decided to pursue "separate missions."
On its official website in 2023, Burning Man continued to host a 2005 statement describing the split as resulting from a situation where "the journalistic needs of the publisher and editorial staff have not always remained well-aligned.
As an independent publication, the editors of the Beacon naturally enjoy full journalistic license to cover the news in Black Rock City without any oversight by the Burning Man Project."
[7] In September 2017, the Wall Street Journal described a "newspaper war" occurring between Burning Man journalists, noting that the Black Rock Beacon had held holding morning news meetings for that August's events, in one case delayed by dust storms.