BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev.—The Black Rock Beacon’s morning news meeting started an hour late one day last week. A dust storm the night before blew the newsroom down.

Around 11 a.m., while many attendees of the weeklong Burning Man counterculture festival were still awake from the night before, a crew of 10 “burnalists” gathered under a new tent to plan the next day’s newspaper.

The...