Beyond Wall Street: Dow Jones on redefining legacy media for a new era

Legacy media faces a crisis of trust. Misinformation, algorithmic manipulation, and a fractured truth threaten the very foundation of journalism. Social media and AI have blown apart the old order, challenging the gatekeeping authority that big mastheads held and their absolute monopoly on readers' attention. With social media algorithms dictating content discovery and AI tools threatening traditional journalism models, even the most established media houses face existential questions about their future. It's not hyperbole to say the survival of quality journalism hangs in the balance—the challenge isn't just about distinguishing fact from fiction but about sustainable business models in an era where attention is increasingly fragmented and traditional revenue streams are under threat.

Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, knows this struggle all too well. While its portfolio—including Barron's, MarketWatch, and Factiva—serves distinct niches in financial news and business intelligence, the company is seeking to reinvent itself beyond finance. The past year has seen significant strategic shifts at the organisation. Under new editor-in-chief Emma Tucker's "reader-first" mandate, the publication has undergone substantial restructuring, including global redundancies and a reorganisation of its Asia operations with a pivot to Singapore from Hong Kong as its regional hub. The appointment of Deborah Ball as Asia editor has also underscored this renewed focus on the region. These changes come as parent company News Corp navigates the rising tide of artificial intelligence, recently striking a deal with OpenAI reported to be worth $250 million over five years, giving the ChatGPT maker access to The Journal's content. 

At a recent event in Singapore, part of Dow Jones' Journal House initiative, global executives from the company unpacked this evolving vision, highlighting their strategy to connect with new audiences and redefine the role of The Wall Street Journal for a global readership with Campaign.

A new complexity in communications

For Ashok Sinha, who joined Dow Jones in September 2023 and was recently promoted to global head of communications, this change requires a delicate balance. On one side, there is the weight of representing a centuries-old institution with a legacy in business journalism. On the other, there are deeply sensitive editorial matters that require careful navigation.

The media industry's rapid evolution from traditional to digital channels has fundamentally altered how legacy institutions must approach communications. This shift was particularly evident to Sinha, who has witnessed the transformation firsthand. "When I started my career, communications was very different. We were faxing press releases, you would have to know just 10 reporters," he reflected. "The landscape has never been more disrupted, never more fragmented. But I see that as an opportunity—it means there are more places to tell your story."

This fragmentation has dissolved the traditional boundaries between internal and external communications, requiring a more integrated approach from media organisations. Where once roles were clearly defined, today's environment demands broader expertise. "One of the things I say to the team all the time is you can't think of yourself as being just an internal comms person. You have to understand how to tell a story from every single possible perspective," Sinha noted. "As people enter the business now, they just naturally think that way. They're used to getting their information from everywhere: Social media, traditional media, television, it's coming at them from all directions."

For a global media brand like Dow Jones, these challenges are magnified by the need to maintain consistent messaging across multiple time zones and cultural contexts. "It's a 24-hour news cycle; we've got a team that's all around the world, and so [we ask ourselves] how do we work together in the best way to make sure that when New York goes to bed, London wakes up, Singapore wakes up a little bit later, and that information moves in the right direction around the globe?" This reality has pushed the organisation to rethink its entire approach to news distribution: "Previously, we would be thinking about news coverage generating from New York, and then we would look to place it around the world. But really, WSJ is a global news organisation, so there's no reason that stories that originate from Asia shouldn't be getting attention in the US."

This new global dynamic has also forced a reassessment of traditional agency relationships. While external partnerships remain crucial for global media organisations, the requirements and expectations have shifted dramatically. "Agency resources are tremendously important," Sinha noted. "Throughout my career, I've always used agencies for help and support in various ways. It's really important that an agency understands your business. I can't tell you how often I've had an agency supporting my business where it's clear that they don't understand imperatives, they don't understand priorities." In an era where communications strategy can make or break a media brand's global reputation, Sinha emphasised that superficial agency relationships no longer suffice: "If you're relying on an agency, you're relying on them for very specific reasons, because there's something that they're offering you that you can't provide in-house, whether that's from a resource perspective or an expertise perspective."

The true test of these evolved communications capabilities came in an unprecedented crisis. Shortly before Sinha's promotion, the organisation faced what would become one of the most challenging communications tasks in its history: Advocating for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia. The situation demanded a delicate balance between maintaining public awareness and managing diplomatic sensitivities. "When you look at how many journalists have been killed this year alone, this isn't a traditional PR exercise, a man's life was at stake," Sinha said. "There was a concerted effort to keep Evan and his situation top of mind. This wasn't about a single communications message but about driving a deeply sensitive, global advocacy effort."

The Gershkovich situation highlighted a broader truth about modern media communications: What works in one region may not work in another. This is particularly relevant as Dow Jones expands its focus on Asia-Pacific markets, where approaches to press freedom and advocacy vary significantly. "Having a global team in place was crucial, but so was the ability to adapt regionally," Sinha explained. "We have to understand how audiences in Singapore or Japan view press freedom differently from those in the West." 

News: It's your business

The transformation of The Wall Street Journal from a strictly financial publication to a broader, more inclusive platform is also a central part of Dow Jones' current strategy, led by Sheryn Weiss, chief marketing officer. "The WSJ has always had this strong reputation in finance," she shared, "but we wanted people to reconsider how relevant it can be beyond that space."

"We can't depend on referral traffic any more. We can't depend on social media to bring people to our site," Weiss acknowledged, highlighting a challenge faced by all premium publishers as platform algorithms increasingly prioritise short-form video and entertainment content over traditional news. "At this point, it's more critically important for us to be loud in market with brand, to drive people organically to our site."

Extensive customer research has informed this approach. "What we found was our editorial content appeals to a variety of adjacent audiences that have a lot in common with our core finance readership," Weiss explained. "They're professionals. They view themselves as wanting to make an impact on their career. They want to be well informed, not just in the office, but with their peers and their friends."

Behind the scenes, the transformation also involves sophisticated data analytics. "Look, coming out of financial services, every decision you make is analytically based," Weiss elaborated, touching on her background with financial institutions like Citibank. "Throughout the full marketing life cycle, right acquisition, all the way through engagement and retention. One-size-fits-all does not work. It does not work from an optimised perspective." Her team is developing sophisticated predictive models to determine optimal price points and engagement strategies. "The price point you acquire somebody on doing it blanket, for instance, will not result in the same level of conversion, and, frankly, long-term profitability versus if you're able to figure out what price point to give a specific subscriber in a specific channel based on the information that you know."

These models extend to understanding subscriber behaviour. "You have gut reactions or hypotheses around engagement actions that subscribers take, that you can make an assumption drive retention, but we actually don't know if that's correlated or causal," Weiss explained. "We're doing a variety of tests right now, just looking at subscriber reader behaviour to determine what actions can a subscriber take that makes them more likely to stay, and how much of that is causal?"

The 'It's Your Business' campaign brings this strategy to life through innovative advertising placements. "On the side of a hot dog van in New York, we had 'Make hot dog economics your business' talking about food inflation. And one of my favourites was the article that we featured where we did a deep dive on people who are becoming lifelong renters, and why are people making that choice financially versus buying?"

The audience experience

But how do you take such a marketing proposition and editorial vision and translate it into tangible awareness and impact? Mae Cheng, Dow Jones' global executive vice president and general manager for leadership, luxury, and events, is focused on doing exactly that, tapping into projects such as the Journal House to take the vision to a more experiential level. Known as The Wall Street Journal's "home away from home" during notable global gatherings, Journal House has, since 2019, been a WSJ-branded event space, hosting luminaries from Microsoft's Satya Nadella to Formula One's Chase Carey.

While maintaining consistent branding elements across locations, each installation adapts to its environment. "Wherever you go, we try to bring a little bit of the local flavour to [Journal House]," Cheng explained. "While the graphics may be the same, the colouring behind the graphics may be different to reflect a little bit more of the environment that we're in."

The programming adapts to each location's varied and unique market dynamics. "Singapore is a great example," Cheng said. "Right here, we have a rapidly growing business on the energy front, on risks, and in geopolitics, and so you'll see that reflected in the programming a lot more than someplace else." 

Journal House Singapore. Photo: Clifton Prescod for Dow Jones

Journal House has evolved beyond its initial scope. "When we started Journal House, I think it was more centred on just Wall Street Journal in the newsroom, but over the years, that's really expanded. We've highlighted our other consumer businesses, Barron's, MarketWatch, Financial News, and our B2B businesses. It would have been rare a few years ago to hear anything about energy and risk and geopolitics and compliance, but that's now a stable part of the programming."

The B2B strategy has also become increasingly sophisticated. "It's not hard to sell our products because we recognise that the best way to demonstrate our value is to let you experience the content live," she noted. This approach yields results: "I've heard from our B2B partners that often, we'll put together all this great programming, all these great discussions, and at the end, they have people coming up like, 'Okay, so tell us about what products you have that address these issues?'"

And what constitutes success in the events space? Cheng outlines a holistic approach: "How many sponsorship dollars do we bring in? How much great content do we produce? How many great speakers do we have? Do we hit our audience goals? But some benefits defy quantification—one of the things that we can't quantify, no matter what, is the deepening of trust. When they experience the content, their trust deepens with our brand."

Journal House events continue to grow in scale. At Cannes Lions 2024, the publication hosted 24 events and 27 live interviews, distributing 11,525 copies of The Wall Street Journal. While forecasting 2,000 RSVPs, attendance reached 2,687 (105% of targets), with the WSJ Bistro serving 769 people throughout the week.

Future plans for Journal House include expansion beyond the US, with events planned in India and exploration of larger events in the Middle East and Asia. The focus will be on innovation and thoughtful growth: "We have to be thoughtful about where we direct our resourcing. We want to do everything and be everywhere, but we can't do that," Cheng highlighted.

The combined efforts show promising results, with increased site traffic and interest in nine out of ten target markets, particularly among younger professional women.

Yet Weiss remains measured, framing the rebrand as a long-term effort.

"Brand is a long-term investment. It's not about immediate conversion; it's about establishing The Journal as a resource for life, one that people return to across their personal and professional milestones."