The answer to that would be a definite emphatic "No!" based on James Lileks' latest post. Lileks writes that rather than creating synergy between his handsome, sprawling, ever-growing personal site and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the paper's new owners chose to assign him write straight news copy, thus ending his daily humor column in the Strib:

There’s been some talk that I might leverage my mad web skillz into a tech beat, reporting on the Internet. But a local beat about the Internet? How many stories can do you about six guys in a loft coding a hot new start-up? And heaven forbid we have to illustrate them, because then you get the inevitable geek-by-the-screen shot. Look! He’s customizing the drop-down location menu so it defaults to the United States instead of Afghanistan!

I don’t want to write about the Internet. I want to write on the Internet. I’d rather develop content than report about content developers. It’s that simple, and it’s also a matter of recognizing my failings: I am not Biff Deadline, Ace Reporter. I can do long stories with lots of color, all aslosh with subjective opinions, but writing straight news - clearly, simply, briskly - is a skill I lack, and I take off my hat to those who've mastered that discipline.

My column will end a week from this Friday. (There’s a series of pieces I can’t wait to write.) After that, it's just-the-facts-ma'am - and I'll no longer be telecommuting, either. This means I will start burning my share of hydrocarbons like a good American. Hell, I may leave the vehicle running all day outside the building just to make up for lost time. Maybe I will put a green roof on the car to balance things out. Some turf, some switchgrass. It's murder on the paint but we all must do our part.

Would it matter if you contacted the paper? It very well might. Here's the reader's rep's page.

If I can get my column back and / or a nice big Online gig, that would be a satisfactory conclusion. Reporting on internet start-ups as opposed to joining an internet start-up – eh, not so much.

This would read like yet another moment in this newspaper's de-evolution in the face of ever-more competitive information technology, if it weren't, you know, actually real.

Update: More thoughts from "See-Dubya", and from Hugh Hewitt, who calls the Strib's decision "a New Coke order of blunder". Exactly.

More: "Union rules may make the Star Tribune unmanageable. James's announcement makes it a joke".

Still More: Speaking of which, this scenario makes the most sense:

You’re fat, and the paper is on a crash diet. They don’t really want you to be a reporter; they want you to quit. They’re just making sure you’ll be in a mood to do so when, in a number of weeks or maybe months, they offer you a buyout to leave. Take it. There’s no guarantee the next staff reduction will be voluntary.

Considering who else at the Strib's old guard is getting the same offer they can't refuse, apparently this is how you clean house in a union shop with minimum risk of getting sued.

VodkaPundit's Will Collier has some thoughts for whoever becomes Lileks' next employer.