The company was led by the Bancroft family, which effectively controlled 64% of all voting stock, until 2007 when an extended takeover battle saw News Corporation acquire the business.

[7] It was reported on August 1, 2007, that the bid had been successful after an extended period of uncertainty about shareholder agreement, with the transaction finalized on December 13, 2007.

[8][9][10] It was worth US$5 billion or $60 a share, giving News Corp control of The Wall Street Journal and ending the Bancroft family's 105 years of ownership.

[15][16] Its flagship publication, The Wall Street Journal, is a daily newspaper in print and online covering business, financial national and international news and issues around the globe.

There are 12 versions of the Journal in nine languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, Turkish and Korean.

[17] Other consumer-oriented publications of Dow Jones include Barron's Magazine, a weekly overview of the world economy and markets, MarketWatch, an online financial news site, and Investor's Business Daily, a newspaper and website covering the stock market, international business, finance and economics.

[22] Dow Jones also published Heat Street, an online news and opinion website launched in February 2016 that was later folded into MarketWatch.

The company reports more than 600,000 subscribers – including brokers, traders, analysts, world leaders, and finance officials and fund managers – as of July 2011.

In February 2010, Dow Jones sold a 90% stake in its Index business for $607.5 million to Chicago-based CME Group, which owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

[44] Our strategy centers around leaving the print publications of Dow Jones intact to continue serving as the gold standard of financial reporting, and creating additional earnings streams through digital media initiatives that can produce a stock price above 100 dollars a share, For too long, Dow Jones has limited its focus to the world of print media and allowed other, less established entities to generate millions of dollars in profits by developing financial reporting franchises on the Internet and cable television.

The time has come for Dow Jones to break out of its slumber and extend its dominance into the lucrative arena of digital media.Upon investigating suspicious share price movements in the run-up to the announcement, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that board member Sir David Li, one of Hong Kong's most prominent businessmen, had informed his close friend and business associate Michael Leung of the impending offer.

Leung acted on this information by telling his daughter and son-in-law, who reaped a US$8.2 million profit from an insider trading transaction.

[46] Prior to its sale to News Corp, the last members of the board of directors of the company were Christopher Bancroft, Lewis B. Campbell, Michael Elefante, John Engler, Harvey Golub, Leslie Hill, Irvine Hockaday, Peter Kann, David Li, M. Peter McPherson (chairman), Frank Newman, James Ottaway, Elizabeth Steele, and William Steere.