Anchorless: WMTW-TV, Channel 8 in Portland, is looking for a new anchor for its 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts, after the retirement on March 3 of news veteran Tory Ryden.

According to WMTW news director George Matz, Ryden, who was the sole host of both shows, called it quits “to spend more time with her family.”

Ryden started at Channel 8 in 2003. She had previously been an anchor at WBZ-TV and WFXT-TV in Boston and in Jacksonville, Florida, but got her start in broadcast news in the Bangor market.

Veep-less: Pseudonymous blogger Thomas Cushing Munjoy is reporting some defections at MaineToday Media, the company that owns the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel.

According to Munjoy, Mark Barry, MTM’s vice president of circulation (and a member of the company’s board of directors) has resigned abruptly for reasons unknown.

MaineToday’s chief financial officer, Ann Roderick, had also jumped ship sometime earlier, says Munjoy.

Gov coverage with guts: The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, the non-profit, investigative-journalism project based in Hallowell, has launched a series of stories profiling the major candidates for governor.

If the first article in this series, covering Republican Les Otten, is any indication, the center plans to ask the hard questions that have, to date, been missing from the wimpy coverage in daily newspapers and TV stations.

In other news from the center, Marian McCue, former owner of the Forecaster papers, is now a contributing reporter. The center’s stories, which are provided to news outlets without charge, are now appearing in the Forecaster, as well as in the Current Publishing newspapers.

Municipal poetry: From a story by staff writer David Hart in the March 10, 2010 edition of the Original Irregular, a weekly newspaper published in Kingfield:

“Questions and complexities arise when comparing approved minutes verses the final stamped building plans …”

It appears to be a clash between iambic pentameter and mere poesy.

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.