Who owns Dow Jones & Company?

Dow Jones & Company was acquired by News Corp. in 2007 from the Bancroft family, who had owned the company since 1902. The company includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires. News Corp. is owned by newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch who, in the purchase of Dow Jones, promised not to influence editorial content in The Wall Street Journal.

History of Dow Jones & Co.

Dow Jones & Company was founded in 1882 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones, both financial reporters. In that time period, reporters took bribes and only touted certain news on certain stocks. Dow and Jones sought to provide investors with an unbiased report of the financial news on Wall Street. They first published a report entitled, “Customers’ Afternoon Letter.” The news was appreciated for its simple structure, but it was not until the famous Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was first published in May 1896 that investors looked increasingly to Dow Jones for financial news. Later, the demand for the newspaper prompted the first publishing of The Wall Street Journal. In 2019, the paper was the second-largest newspaper in circulation in the United States, trusted for its unbiased exposure of factual financial data about publicly traded companies.

In later years, Dow Jones & Company developed newswire communications for investment firms and WSJ.com. In each of its ventures, the company sought to provide unbiased and factual financial data so consumers could make wise investment decisions.

(For related reading, see “Who or What Is Dow Jones?“)