HuffPo has announced that James Warren, the former Managing Editor of the Chicago Tribune will be moving his "On Magazines column to the Huffington Post where it will appear weekly beginning October 5. Says Warren about the move:

Now, thanks to the surrogates of the Tribune's new proprietor, and with my beloved Yankees out of the playoffs, I've got a little extra time. So I shall return to the fold and be reminded that, yes, despite the dumbing-down of American culture, there are armies lot of ardent, serious readers out there.

We asked HuffPo whether this meant that, unlike the vast array of bloggers currently contributing to HuffPo for free, Warren was joining as a paid contributor and were told no. Full release after the jump.

Former Chicago Tribune "On Magazines" Column Becomes
HuffPost Blog to Appear Every Sunday

New York, NY, September 25, 2008 -- The Huffington Post, a leading news and opinion site, announced today that James Warren, recently departed Managing Editor of the Chicago Tribune, will be contributing a weekly blog post, On Magazines, which had formerly appeared as a column in the Chicago Tribune. Warren will continue to cover a wide range of magazines and journals in his blog, which will appear each Sunday and which debuts on October 5th.

"I have been an obsessive reader of Jim's column for years, so I'm really delighted that I can now be reading it on HuffPost," said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. "Jim uses magazines as a vantage point from which to observe our culture. Like The Huffington Post, his interests are wide-ranging, so he'll be offering his insights on everything from People magazine to The Wilson Quarterly, as well as uncovering hidden nuggets buried within obscure journals or overlooked in mainstream publications."

Said Warren: "Like a dogged parole officer, the magazines column has trailed me for nearly three decades, no matter my day job. If I had a buck for every one I've written about which is no longer with us, I could fly business class to Beijing. It's part and parcel of a truly vibrant, competitive industry on which I've had a neat window. Now, thanks to the surrogates of the Tribune's new proprietor, and with my beloved Yankees out of the playoffs, I've got a little extra time. So I shall return to the fold and be reminded that, yes, despite the dumbing-down of American culture, there are armies lot of ardent, serious readers out there."

Warren's magazine column first appeared in 1979 in the Chicago Sun-Times when Warren was a staff legal affairs and labor writer. He brought his magazine column to the Chicago Tribune, where he continued to write it even while serving as Washington Bureau Chief for eight years. Warren continues to be a political commentator on MSNBC.