Welcome to the New Weekly Wave!

February 3, 2014

DEAR READERS,

Today marks 19 months of publication for the Cape Charles Wave, and the first change in our format. Up until today the Wave has operated as a daily online newspaper, with one or more new stories posted at the top of the page at least five days a week. Judging by statistics, our readers enjoy visiting the Wave each day to see what’s new.

The problem with daily updates, however, is that important news goes away too fast. And so beginning today we are changing the Wave format to place more emphasis on NEWS. Our other categories — arts, dining, events, features, commentary, editorials, letters, columns, passings — will still feature prominently on the front page, but secondary to news stories.

To accomplish this, the Wave is becoming a weekly publication, with a new issue every Monday. The stories published on Monday will remain on the page in that order for a full week, giving prominent exposure to the news stories at the top of the page. However, Comments, Anonymous, Gossip, and Classifieds will continue to be updated in real time, so we hope that many readers will still want to visit the Wave every day to see what others have to say about the news, commentary, and events of the week. And we’ll still publish the WEEKEND photo page whenever we’ve got a good one.

We’ll also make an exception for important breaking news such as the upcoming town elections, which will merit an EXTRA! edition on Wednesday following the vote. (UPDATE: As it happened, Governor McAuliffe’s visit to Cape Charles merited an EXTRA! the very next day.)

This week’s stories lead with news on the chicken front: Town staff has recommended to the Planning Commission to allow residents to keep a few hens (not roosters) on their property.

The next story follows up on Public Service Authority news with details of Bob Panek’s resignation as PSA chairman.

Then comes a restaurant review of the Eastville Inn by our new food critic Clarice MacGarvey, who hopes to visit and review every restaurant in town and nearby.

After that is a humorous but biting commentary by the always controversial Wayne Creed. It sounds like his family might become members of the new Bay Creek Beach Club.

Following that is an insightful analysis of the situation in Northampton County Schools by Ted Warner, who until a few months ago was a Cape Charles resident, a teacher at Northampton High, and president of the local teachers association.

And we’re not finished yet — the week’s offerings conclude with a reprint of a story on Cape Charles published exactly 15 years ago this week in the Baltimore Sun. As always, it’s intriguing to read these reports from a “back to the future” perspective. We’ve been waiting for months to present it on its 15th anniversary.

CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE

On the occasion of this format change, and our own 19-month anniversary, we want to thank all our readers for devoting time out of their day to visit the Wave. Also a special thanks to our many critics, who help us keep our pride whittled down in the face of continuing growth in readership. On a good week (and last week was better than good) we now have 3,000 “unique” readers. Google News prominently features the Wave’s reporting. On Sunday, for example, the first 30 Google News entries for Cape Charles were all from the Wave, with the 31st coming from the Eastern Shore News. Bing News also features the Wave, but yesterday’s entries showed a tie between the Wave and the Eastern Shore News.

And this is a good time to emphasize that the Wave has no illusions of trying to compete with other local media, whether the News, the Eastern Shore Post, the Town’s Gazette, or even the new tourist website Cape Charles By the Bay. The Wave exists primarily to report Cape Charles news and events, and secondarily to provide a forum for opinion. If any other organization had been doing that, we would not have seen the need.

Also, a special thanks to our advertisers, who keep us from having to go out of pocket to publish the Wave. We have no advertising manager, and don’t even solicit ads — they come to us. Now we’re running out of advertising space, as can be seen in the right-hand column.

Finally, we want to point out that the best way keep up with what’s in the Wave is to subscribe — just submit your email address in the box in the right-hand column, and then be sure to reply to the confirmation email you will receive. As a subscriber, you’ll receive an email every day that a new story appears in the Wave.  Another way to keep up is to “like” the Wave on Facebook. There’s a box on the right to do that, too.

Please enjoy the new weekly Wave!

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Comments

2 Responses to “

Welcome to the New Weekly Wave!”

  1. Bill Powell on February 3rd, 2014 6:12 pm

    Thanks for your publication. I haven’t lived in CC since 1950, but spent my original 19 year growing up on Randolph Avenue and attending Cape Charles school. Still enjoy bringing my children and grandchildren for a week of vacation in the summer, but miss the railroad tugs,barges, and passenger steamers, and the Virginia Ferry Corporation’s boats, and also the constant activity in the railroad yard. Time changes most things.

  2. Roger L. Munz on February 4th, 2014 9:21 am

    Thanks for all the info over the past 19 months — I feel certain this will continue in the weekly format. As always, Irene and I will look forward to each new issue, and what’s important in and around Cape Charles.