Press: From Feminists to Teenyboppers

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The pairing seems about as likely as a business lunch between Author Germaine Greer and Pop Singer Tiffany: Ms., the feminist bible born of the political turmoil of the 1960s, and Sassy, the impudent primer for the latest generation of boy-crazy teenage girls. But Sassy Founder Sandra Yates and Ms. Editor Anne Summers are betting that the two magazines will be the foundation of a new media empire. Last week the two transplanted Australians signed a deal to buy Ms. and Sassy from their former employer, Australia's John Fairfax Ltd.

Fairfax's decision to sell the two magazines represents an abrupt about- face. It was only a year ago that the company, which is Australia's second largest publishing concern, dispatched Yates to the U.S. to create Sassy, an American version of Fairfax's fabulously successful Australian teen magazine Dolly. Last September, upon hearing that Ms. Founders Gloria Steinem and Patricia Carbine were looking for a new source of funding, Yates persuaded her Australian bosses to buy the magazine for a reported $10 million. She then installed Summers, a feminist historian and former chief of Fairfax's New York bureau, as editor.

But just as Sassy and the new Ms. were hitting the newsstands, Warwick Fairfax, the company's 27-year-old chief, decided to sell his fledgling American subdivision. At that point, Yates exercised an option to buy the two magazines. Yates and Summers are reluctant to disclose details of the purchase, but they insist that their backers, which include the State Bank of New South Wales and a major U.S. bank, have provided their new company, Matilda Publishing, with enough cash to get through the start-up period.

They will need it. Although a trailblazer when it was founded in 1972, Ms. (circ. 485,000) has never been a financial success. Advertisers have always been cool to the magazine, and "the editorial voice failed to move with the times," says Yates. In an effort "to reflect the pragmatism of women as they move into the 1990s," Yates and Summers embarked on an expensive make-over, increasing the magazine's size and introducing a less cluttered design.

Freed from editorial restrictions placed on it when it was published by a tax-exempt foundation, Ms. now features political coverage and a revamped news section. Current articles stress solid reporting and are deliberately less doctrinaire. "Ms. approaches the world with 'feminist' assumptions, but it doesn't mean we use the word in every sentence," says Summers. Despite these changes, the new Ms. is still in transition. "We are neither a workingwoman's magazine nor a traditional woman's magazine, nor a fashion magazine," declares Summers, unwittingly leaving the impression that she is far more certain about what Ms. is not than what it is.