Rick Chandler at Deadspin has been following the Jay Mariotti story with something resembling fascination. I prefer to consider my interest based more in horror, but I suppose it’s fascinating, too. After all, here’s a guy most people at the Chicago Tribune genuinely can not stand. And he’s about to become one of their highest-paid co-workers. This will not end well.

Anyway, Chandler heard some more horrifying news yesterday: Mariotti’s deal with the Trib is “a matter of when, not if”:

“I’m told that it’s a matter of when, not if. It appears that Mariotti has a pretty strict non-compete clause, but they have lawyers working very hard to get around it. It is definitely being driven by the new regime, and not the newspaper people. Lee Abrams and Randy McMichael as the drivers, with no mention of Sam Zell, but that certainly doesn’t indicate he’s not involved. Word is that these guys want a provocative “shock jock” type as in radio (Abrams’s influence, apparently), and there is absolutely no regard for journalistic tenets, or Mariotti’s standing among colleagues and those he covers.”

This is pretty much what 670 The Score’s Dan Bernstein reported on Wednesday — that the desire for Mariotti was coming from the highest levels of Tribune management, that their desire for him was out of the standard Zellian”screw-you-people-we’re-trying-to-save-this-paper” attitude. So it’s not surprising that this continues. (Chi-Ball, fast becoming a must-read around these parts, is reporting similar news.)

It’s hard to see what recourse Tribune employees have. Part of Bernstein’s analysis was that Zell actually wants a mutiny; that gives him the ability to get people off salary and into buyouts without the bad press that comes along with it. So, if you’re a Tribune employee, what do you do? Do you ride it out in defiance, guns up for the business you love? Or do you take the buyout? Is Oprah hiring?

It’s time to figure it out, because Jay-Jay is on the way. Your newspaper is about to get 40 percent less newspapery.