News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch yesterday said he expects Dow Jones & Co.’s controlling Bancroft family to decide on the latest negotiated plan for his acquisition of the company in a few weeks or “not at all.”

Murdoch’s remarks, made at a business event in Warsaw, Poland, came just a day after News Corp. and the Dow Jones board reached a tentative accord over editorial independence of The Wall Street Journal.

When asked by Reuters if he would raise his $5 billion offer for Dow Jones, Murdoch told the news service, “Everything is done. We are just waiting for a final approval of the Bancroft family. The final approval is in the next two, three week’s time, or not at all.”

Dow Jones shares fell 21 cents to $58.56, while News Corp. stock slid 31 cents to $23. News Corp. owns The Post.

The Bancrofts are weighing two key issues in the sale: price and maintaining editorial independence at The Journal.

Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post, in an Editor & Publisher interview, said the debate about limiting an owner’s involvement in a newspaper was “making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Referring to his former publisher, Bradlee said, “If Katharine Graham had not liked what The Post was under me, she would have bagged me.”