If you’re the publisher of a mid-size newspaper and you use AP copy, you’re in a bit of Catch-22. Having field reporters all over the world is too expensive, but using the wire service’s words might soon be out of your price range, too.

In 2009, the AP will unveil a new pricing model that, by the AP’s own estimation, will cost the wire service $6 million to $7 million in revenue.

According to AP president Tom Curley, under the new structure, “about 80% [of stories] would get a cutback, 10% will remain the same and 10% would go up.”

Which seems great for newspapers that subscribe to the AP, but editors from the Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Diego Union-Tribune, to name a few, see it differently, and have written a letter in protest:

As editors of American newspapers, all of us are managing through difficult times. We are sharply cutting expenses, paring the size of our publications, and reducing staff. We are doing what we must, no matter how difficult.

However, year after year we are confronted with high charges for Associated Press services. Rates for the basic service were stabilized in 2007. Yet rates for supplemental services continue to rise. Also, AP invoices lack detail on how rates are calculated, and our budget-cutting efforts are stymied by onerous cancellation policies.

The AP board is meeting later in the week and plan on discussing this letter, but there’s no plan on actually changing anything.

If the AP will, in fact, lose money on this revenue model, it’s suspicious they’re also ramping up their celebrity coverage. (Or is it that cheap to repurpose TMZ.com posts?)

The wire service is also expanding its campaign coverage with a new multimedia project called “The Measure of a Nation,” which will issue a 2,600-word item among its first offerings.

Previous efforts to move beyond simple wire copy, like “asap,” its lowercase-named service aimed at younger readers, failed miserably.

As for newspapers, there’s always the sometimes-accurate Reuters. Or if things get really desperate, as it looks like they are, papers can go Huffington Post style and get semi-famous people to rant gratis.