Dow Jones’ Sherry Weis: Marketing at the speed of the newsroom matters more than ever

Speaking to The Drum at Journal House during Cannes Lions, Weiss laid out her case for “marketing at the speed of the newsroom” — a philosophy she’s embedded since joining the business from finance firm Citi back in 2022.

And while it may sound like a philosophy uniquely tailored to media brands, Weiss argues it’s something every modern CMO needs to embrace, regardless of sector.

From headline to mid-funnel in under 30 minutes

“This is mission critical,” Weiss says. “We’re in the middle of a large geopolitical event right now that’s evolving by the hour – and it’s impacting the world, the economy, markets, energy pricing. My team back in New York is meeting with the newsroom hourly. Within 30 minutes, we need to be live with creative that reflects what’s being published.”

That creative isn’t just reactive amplification. “We’re not just boosting articles,” she explains. “We get a heads-up before something publishes – exclusives, videos – and we turn that into content marketing, embedding headlines directly into mid-funnel work. It has to be timely. It has to drive people to the site. And it has to be brand-aligned.”

To enable that pace, Weiss has embedded marketing roles within the newsroom itself. “They’re trusted advisors,” she says. “They have access to the editors. They work closely with legal and standards. If I want to run something past legal, I’ll email our general counsel and get an answer straight away.”

Not just for publishers

This playbook, Weiss insists, is replicable well beyond media. “This isn’t just a newsroom thing. It’s a discipline that comes from process and structure,” she says. “The reason we can move quickly is because we’ve automated the slow stuff – and built clear guardrails for creative, compliance, and standards.”

Weiss compares this approach to building a “container environment” in tech: “Marketers can move quickly when they know the limits. You don’t launch a new brand in 24 hours. But once the platform’s there, you can iterate on it fast, without breaking things.”

Even in sectors like financial services, that approach remains possible, says Weiss. “That’s one of the most regulated spaces there is,” she says. “And even there, we’d be building while getting audited. You just need clear frameworks and fast escalation paths.”

The takeaway for traditional brands? Don’t confuse speed with chaos. If your teams know the rules, and the path to approval, they can still be fast, responsive, and strategic.

Why AI might help (and why it won’t replace journalism)

At Journal House, Weiss was also checking out the AI tools on show. “What’s happening with genAI is just going to accelerate this even more,” she says. “I was at the Google AI Summit this morning – people are already uploading brand guidelines into agents that can auto-generate compliant creative variations in minutes.”

But she’s also clear-eyed about AI’s limits, especially in journalism. Dow Jones has a public partnership with OpenAI, and Weiss says they’re seeing a growing share of traffic from large language models. Still, she sees differentiation as key.

“I’m optimistic,” she says. “LLMs are great for surfacing generic info. But what sets us apart is investigative, exclusive journalism. That’s what people come to The Journal for. It’s not something a chatbot can replicate.”

Rebuilding the brand for a referral-light future

Weiss says the shift to digital has made brand building more critical than ever, especially as the era of ambient newspaper marketing has faded.

“Ten years ago, the print edition was brand marketing,” she explains. “You’d see it on every desk. Now, with the decline of referral traffic and changing consumer habits, we need people to choose to visit us directly.”

Hence the brand refresh she led last year, launching a new platform: It’s Your Business. “All our campaigns now are grounded in that. We put our journalism front and center in the marketing itself. And everything in-market – even what’s live right now – ties back to the stories we’re publishing.”

The shift isn’t just creative. It’s behavioral. “Our engagement is moving to the app. People are consuming content differently. And we’re rethinking what ‘owned and operated’ means,” she adds.

So is the destination website dead? Not quite. Weiss argues it will continue to have a role, pointing out the print’s demise has also been much exaggerated.

“Our print circulation is around 400,000, and there’s still a loyal audience there,” she says. “But what the website looks like in five or 10 years? We don’t know yet. The format might change, but the need to build a brand that people actively seek out? That’s only going to grow.”