Walking on a wire: The Associated Press announced on Oct. 23 that it was suspending plans to institute a new pricing structure next year and instead instituting a “sweeping” review of the wire service’s policies, to be completed by April.

The AP’s new pricing structure would have reduced costs for many Maine newspapers, but not by as much as some of them wanted.

The Lewiston Sun Journal, for instance, would have seen its annual bill for wire stories drop from about $167,000 to $157,000.

To put pressure on the AP, which is a cooperative owned by many of the newspapers and broadcast outlets it serves, several Maine dailies began a story-sharing arrangement in September.

Because the decision to halt the new pricing plan will reduce AP’s revenues next year, officials at the wire service say they’ll be forced to make staff reductions, with layoffs likely.

Prophetic headline of the day: Here’s the sub-headline that ran above a story in the Oct. 24 Morning Sentinel, on that newspaper and its sister publication, the Kennebec Journal, winning an award for their town-specific Web sites:

“Contest is designed to bust readership, innovation in news industry”

Seems to be working.

(Possibly because of the award-winning excellence of its Web site, the Sentinel didn’t run this sub-headline with the online version of the story.)

Good work, if a little late: As part of an Oct. 24 package of stories about the casino question on the November ballot, the Bangor Daily News and reporter Diana Graettinger finally got around to asking Maine Indians living in Washington County how they feel about the proposal to build a gambling facility in Oxford County.

In 2007, the Passamaquoddy Tribe tried unsuccessfully to convince voters to allow them to build a casino near Calais. As Graettinger points out, among the places that voted against the Indians last year: Oxford County (she mistakenly lists the countywide vote as being statewide) and the town of Oxford, where the proposed gaming facility would be built.

How’s that playing out in this campaign?

“Hell, if we can’t have it here,” one Washington County resident told her, “they can’t have it there.”

I’d have thought more news organizations would have jumped on this rather obvious story angle a whole lot sooner.

Good work, right on time: Ex-Portland Press Herald reporter Kevin Wack continues to do an excellent job of covering the U.S. Senate contest between Republican incumbent Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Tom Allen at his blog, “The Maine Race.”

Wack’s detailed analysis of Collins’ recent TV spot is a first-rate piece of reporting (of a kind rarely seen in his Press Herald days, which makes me wonder what the problem was – bad editing, maybe?) and his take on the often-mind-numbing debates is fresh and insightful. If you haven’t read his stuff, you’re not ready to cast an informed ballot.

Unfortunately, his blogging on local politics will end soon. Wack is heading to Washington D.C., for an internship shortly after the election. I doubt we’ll see him back in Maine.

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.

The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.