Brian -
the resolution was drafted by the Board; Mike & I have no power to modify it. And yes, your appeal is an 11th-hour-one, the deadline for deletion of materials outside the licensing policy is Sunday. So, really, nothing will change until then.
Deleted images are still accessible to admins. I think you should simply
- mark any deleted resources as such in the archived story, indicating that an image originally contained in the article was removed for copyright reasons.
- have an extended period of admin review of the deletions to restore any images that did qualify under the licensing policy.
As for specific Wikinews guidelines: I don't think they're needed - I simply think you guys need to be more flexible in interpreting the policy. It's not as rigid about what is and isn't fair use as you might think; while it gives specific examples of legitimate uses, you can easily argue that these are Wikipedia-centric examples, and that your guidelines are developed based on the specific needs of a news website.
In other words, the likelihood that the Board is going to tolerate a flexible interpretation of its policy is fairly high; the likelihood that it would modify its policy to accommodate your specific needs is low.