Ariel Kaminer is skipping out as the editor of the New York Times Arts & Leisure section—you know, that section you turn to first while curled on your cream-colored couch while your fit lawyer-husband reads Sports nearby. She'll now take a newly-created position—deputy editor for online journalism—while still working in the culture department.

The newspaper web wars—with the stakes in-house being regarded, from the top down, as do or die—heated up just the slightest bit a few weeks ago, when the new editor and publisher of the LA Times demanded emergency rehaulings of how that paper gets news and stories online.

What to make of all this? Well, ignoring recent denials to the contrary, Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger is obsessed with the web. Nowadays, mostly everyone's on-board. (Note today's print Arts section: Two of the four refers direct you to web-only content.) . With deputy managing editor Jon Landman leading the internet crusade, the Times seems willing to take advantage of the editorial (and, cough, advertising) opportunity of the giant, sad void that is online culture coverage. Also new positions like this one look like further resolution of what was a serious, ugly rift between the digital and newsprint operations (that only merged in 2005).

Kaminer took over Arts & Leisure in August, 2005, after serving as the section's deputy under Jodi Kantor, and started the Times culture email. Word on the street is that the A&L job is open, but faces a strong in-house candidate, so don't bother, Mediabistro message-boarders!