CAPE CHARLES, Va. — The Cape Charles Mirror has reached a significant milestone with over 9,000 published articles and 25,000 approved reader comments, reflecting the publication’s continued dedication to veering off the beaten news path and giving citizens a place to voice their opinions.
According to a recent snapshot of the publication’s statistics, the Mirror has 9,137 published stories and 26 drafts in progress. The high level of reader engagement is evident from the 25,000 approved comments, a testament to the Mirror’s role in fostering community dialogue on critical local issues.
Editor-in-Chief Wayne Creed expressed his gratitude to the readership. “This milestone shows just how engaged our community is with local news. We’re proud to offer a platform where residents can not only stay informed but actively participate in the conversation. You always have a voice with the Mirror.”
The Cape Charles Mirror continues to be a leading voice in the Eastern Shore, delivering coverage on topics ranging from local and state government to community events, the environment, and fisheries management, while offering residents a place to discuss matters that are important to them.
Thank you!
Long live the Cape Charles Mirror!
Wayne, I had to think twice, no three times before commenting because I know the sh*t storm it will precipitate but when 1/2 the comments come from ONE GUY this is not the bragging point you think it is.
You must have noticed a number of interesting, cogent commenters have fallen by the wayside over the years, bullied into leaving because of the rantings of that one guy, leaving the Mirror an echo chamber.
Maybe time for a rethink what you’re trying to do here.
Just sayin’.
Editor’s note: Not trying to do anything, I just write when I have time after a 12-hour day job. I understand, but can’t babysit other people’s feelings. He does post a lot, way more than most, close 5000.
How’s the saying – would you like some cheese with that whine?
Something like that, anyway!
And I won a hundred dollar bet that before noon that whiney comment would be posted in here, and lo and behold!
And for the record, an “echo chamber,” as the venerable Cape Charles Mirror is laughingly accused above here of being by a disgruntled poster who feels it should be about him, is defined as an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered, as in “people are living in partisan and ideological echo chambers,” which is way off the mark when it comes to describing the Cape Charles Mirror.
According to the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations, part of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, a social media echo chamber is when one experiences a biased, tailored media experience that eliminates opposing viewpoints and differing voices so that due to social media algorithms that ensure we only see media that fits our preferences, we have found ourselves in a comfortable, self-confirming feed.
And people, let me assure you after being here as a faithful follower of the Cape Charles Mirror since 2018 or so, that description of an echo chamber being a biased, tailored media experience that eliminates opposing viewpoints and differing voices does not fit the Cape Charles Mirror, at all, making that charge itself merely stupid and uninformed.
According to that website at the University of Texas, “social media sites foster confirmation bias because of their basic function.”
“Regardless of the specific algorithm, social media sites like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, and even YouTube, serve the same basic function: to connect groups of like-minded users together based on shared content preferences.”
That is NOT the Cape Charles Mirror!
Going back to that article: This is fed off of confirmation bias, which describes the way people perceive and take in information by filtering it through our preexisting beliefs and opinions.
“Social media companies therefore rely on adaptive algorithms to assess our interests and flood us with information that will keep us scrolling.”
“The algorithms ignore the recency and frequency of what our friends are posting and instead focus on what we ‘like,’ ‘retweet,’ and ‘share’ to keep feeding content that is similar to what we’ve indicated makes us comfortable.”
What brings us comfort is taking in media that already tells us what we agree with, but we must fight this.
Why?
In order to truly get access to all information and to evaluate our media, we must give ourselves the opportunity to step out of our comfort zone.
Otherwise, we find ourselves taking in many unresearched, false facts.
end quotes
BOTTOM LINE: Don’t get sucked in by the vitriolic hype above by the disgruntled poster because the Cape Charles Mirro9r is as far from being an echo chamber as it is possible be and still be on the same planet!
Not to add to his list of duties, but perhaps Wayne Creed could give us a capsule history of the Cape Charles Mirror, starting with how it came into being.
I first became aware of the Mirror just before Wayne Creed took the reins.
I remember a final post by the former editor essentially throwing in the towel in disgust, as I perceived it, after some political controversy down here, and I remember his words to the effect that Wayne Creed, who was taking over, would be a far tougher nut to crack than he was, and so wouldn’t be so easy to run over by the politicians.
And here we are, all these years later, and Wayne Creed and the venerable Cape Charles Mirror are still going strong as a GRAND PALLADIUM of LIBERTY in America, about the only one we really have, actually!