Heather McIntosh was cleaning out her grandmother’s house when she found some pages from an old issue of Chatelaine that had been used to seal a painting into its frame. The University of Ottawa master’s student was captivated. McIntosh says while it’s easy to label the magazine as exclusively recipes and cosmetics, these pages from the late 1920s or early ʽ30s seemed radical for their time. McIntosh studied Chatelaine for her thesis and spent months in the National Archives poring over issues from 1928 to 2010. In past issues, advertisements for beauty and homecare products sat companionably beside recipes and how-to articles, in addition to lengthy features about serious issues. “The contradictions,” she says, “were just absolutely crazy.”

Those contradictions persist because Canadian women haven’t stopped wanting serious journalism in the mix. And that’s what Lianne George, Chatelaine’s sixth editor since 2004, wants to give them. A decade of high turnover has left observers wondering if the venerable title is still relevant, but George’s appointment comes at an ideal time: conversations about feminism are flourishing online, and she wants the magazine to join the fray.

Chatelaine is one of the most widely read Canadian magazines, with a paid circulation of almost 540,000 and a readership of 3.1 million. In the 1960s and ʽ70s, widely regarded as the magazine’s feminist heyday, editor Doris Anderson ran articles about controversial issues such as child abuse and still maintained the wide circulation, which meant the publisher Maclean-Hunter seldom questioned the magazine’s content. “As long as the magazine was selling, she could do whatever she wanted,” says Rona Maynard, who was editor from 1994 to 2004. “Those days are long gone.”

Maynard should know. She was editor through the magazine’s sale to Rogers Publishing, a notable revamp and the launch of Chatelaine’s first website. After she left, Rogers wasn’t sure what the magazine should be, and that uncertainty was reflected in the short tenures of a parade of editors. At the same time, thin margins meant there was little tolerance for anything less than magic and new editors, some of them with no editor-in-chief experience, were subject to Rogers’s shifting standards. The longest serving editor since Maynard was Jane Francisco, at just four years, who left for Good Housekeeping at the end of 2013. “Very beautiful service is Jane’s strong suit,” says Maynard, and her Chatelaine was beautiful and light. Her successor, Karine Ewart, stayed only 17 months before George succeeded her in June 2015.

Choosing George signals that Rogers finally has a clear vision for Chatelaine. With a career that includes Maclean’s, Canadian Business and most recently Toronto alt-weekly The Grid, she is a strong choice for editor. Although she hasn’t finalized her plans yet, they clearly don’t centre around “beautiful service.” The magazine will continue with its blend of content, but George says it’s a living thing and readers can expect it to evolve: “Chatelaine has been around for almost 90 years, and it’s served a lot of purposes over the decades—domestic bible, community hub and under Doris Anderson it led the charge on a lot of women’s rights issues.”

Now George wants it to join today’s conversation about women’s issues. One of her recent moves was hiring Sarah Boesveld from the National Post, where she was known for her sharp takes on the issues of the day across platforms, as well as her thoughtful features in the paper. George wanted her newsy approach for the online site, but Boesveld is also looking forward to doing longer pieces for the print magazine.

Although George is clearly working on a politically engaged Chatelaine, some readers may not be ready. Carol Toller’s 2,500-word profile of Justin Trudeau in October 2014, for example, generated a lot of criticism. Post columnist Robyn Urback called the profile, which took readers inside Trudeau’s domestic life, “proof positive” that the Liberal leader doesn’t take women voters seriously. After all, he granted exclusive access to “a women’s lifestyle magazine” (emphasis not added) that wasn’t going to ask the serious questions but would zero in on “the family, the photos, the charm.” Now-defunct Sun News called it a “puff piece.” George says the pushback to Toller’s “smart, critical piece” reflects old perceptions of the magazine. And Trudeau’s win, and the part his family played in the last weeks of the campaign, suggests the profile had merit. “But at the time,” she says, “there was a perception that Chatelaine doesn’t cover politics in this way.”

And there was nothing puffy about the Q&As that ran in September with Trudeau, Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May. The magazine asked the federal leaders controversial questions on issues ranging from ISIS to abortion. And when Canadians woke up on the morning after this year’s federal election, Boesveld had published a smart, snappy online roundup of election news that included how many women were elected and a snapshot of the magazine’s July 1972 cover, which featured Margaret Trudeau in white, holding the now-PM. More recently, Chatelaine marked the one-year anniversary of the day the Jian Ghomeshi scandal broke by interviewing seven women in journalism, law and activism.

Vanessa Milne, associate managing editor from 2007 to 2012, says the ability to curate feminism, cookery or beauty into a package is still one of the things that helps keep the magazine’s diverse readership.

George wants Chatelaine to be part of current political and cultural conversations about women’s rights. “At the same time,” she says, “we care about great, doable weeknight dinner recipes. It all lives together.” That combination kept the magazine alive in the past, and with George at the helm, Chatelaine just might be a “radical” read for historians 90 years from now.

Vice Media Inc. has teamed up with Rogers Communications Inc. to create a Canadian studio and TV channel. The $100 million joint venture will include a Vice Canada studio based in Toronto, producing a news channel that will sync with mobile and online content.

Vice has been working its way into young adults’ minds since its inception in Montreal in 1994. Starting out as a monthly magazine, it has expanded internationally, now operating in over 30 countries and valued at $2.5 billion. Rogers has made a smart move buying into an organization with the main purpose of engaging the 18- to 34-year-old demographic—one that will grow to half of the Canadian population in less than a decade, according to Rogers CEO Guy Laurence.

Vice CEO Shane Smith has said that he wants to “build the next CNN, the next ESPN.” To some, this may seem a little confusing coming from a news organization that still talks “half the time about rare denim and sneakers.” Last year, Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan called Vice out on selling their counterculture manifesto to the world’s mainstream corporations, all from the starting place of “a humble magazine about doing heroin and having sex (on heroin).” With moves like this partnership with Rogers, it seems they are far-gone from their humble beginnings as an indie magazine made to combat conventional news.

It’s true, Vice’s content is sleazy at times. From their food offshoot Munchies featuring weed edibles as a new culinary art, to news pieces on drugs, sex, violence and random viral videos—it’s easy to castoff Vice as a news source fringing on the line between journalism and sensationalism. Their audience is often divided from those who love video series like “People Who Just Had Sex” (where they interview couples before and after they’ve had sex) to those who would rather get the harder-hitting journalistic pieces like their recent critique on rehab clinics in Southern California.

Yet we can look at the success of BuzzFeed as a prime example of this kind of journalism working and thriving online. Sure the site may attract young audiences with snappy, easy-to-read quizzes, listicles and photo series, but readers can also find well-written investigative features.

Vice’s online description states the magazine is an “ever-expanding galaxy of immersive, investigative, uncomfortable and occasionally uncouth journalism.” The organization is a threat to more traditional news outlets by throwing out the idea that the journalist isn’t a character in the story. Vice’s voice is loud and clear in its content, particularly in the seedier pieces. But for every survey about how often men fake orgasms, there’s a piece of tenacious reporting, such as the documentaries on North Korea and bridal kidnappings in Kyrgyzstan and And it’s not like these journalistic pieces are being ignored—both videos have a combined total of more than six million views.

This partnership with Rogers reflects the changing landscape of Canadian media, where Canadians are actively seeking innovative media outlets, even if they have to pay a membership fee. We wrote about an example of this last month with Ricochet, the new independent bilingual news site that got its start from crowdfunding and aims to offer a counter to the large, all-encompassing news groups like CBC or the Globe and Mail.

Vice got its start as being the cool new kid on the block, the one to take news in a direction that is engaging for youth wanting their news to reflect who they are and what they are passionate about. But when these independent sites gain traction, it’s inevitable that some day they may become mainstream. It’s the same with music, there is always a fight to avoid selling out, keeping the original fans happy but at the same time continuing to grow and prosper. As the journalism world keeps changing, we must remember to keep the focus on quality over capital, and this all stems from leadership. Vice already has an audience, now it is up Smith and management to keep their audience engaged with stories of high journalistic quality. Gen Y likes to learn too, you know.

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Thanks to The Stream Team for the featured image.