New EIC at Elle Canada promises openness and approachability

The new editor-in-chief of Elle Canada, Noreen Flanagan, has submitted to an interview with the Globe and Mail for its Saturday edition (up now on the web) in which she goes to some lengths to explain how her editorial management approach will differ substantially from that of her recently turfed predecessor, Rita Silvan. The leitmotif of the article is access and openness (which not so subtly suggests that the previous regime had neither). For one thing, Flanagan puts a lot of stock in social networking:

“I think that, through Facebook and Twitter, the level of intimacy that people are comfortable with today is so dramatically different than [it was] five, even three years ago,” she said. “People right now want intimacy and immediacy and that’s something that print has to adapt to. We’re a little late in the game but we’re catching up.”

Flanagan told Globe writer Tiyana Grulovic that her style is both retro and futuristic -- retro in the sense of injecting more storytelling in the magazine, futuristic in taking maximum advantage of blogging, e-readers and the like.