It took longer than he wanted, but News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch finally has the jewel in his crown. The mogul at long last got the Bancroft family to signoff on his $5 billion proposal to buy the Dow Jones Co., which owns the Wall Street Journal.

After months of negotiations, the boards of both companies met last night to approve the deal.

What Murdoch plans to do with the paper remains to seen, though many believe that he could us its reputation as the business journal of record to leverage a long-awaited Fox business channel.