Top technology and media executives wrapped up a three-day conference here during which they grappled with -- and left unresolved -- the question of whether readers will pay for news online.

Firmly in the paid camp in the "paid vs free" debate was News Corp's head of digital operations Jon Miller who said charging online readers is a notion that has been "accepted at a variety of levels."

"It's more about how it gets done," Miller told participants in the Fortune Brainstorm Tech event which ended yesterday in this Colorado ski resort.

With newspapers and magazines facing competition from free content on the Web and declining circulation and print advertising revenue, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has been leading the charge to get newspaper readers to pay online.

The Wall Street Journal, a News Corp title, is currently the only major US newspaper to charge readers for full access to its website and one of the few to buck the trend of eroding circulation.

Another News Corp paper, Britain's The Times, erected a pay wall around its website at the beginning of July and Murdoch has said he will eventually do the same at all of the newspapers in his vast stable.

Miller said charging readers is "an idea whose time has come," but others disagreed including Jimmy Pitaro, Yahoo!'s vice president for media.

"We firmly believe that free is the future," said Pitaro, whose Yahoo! News is one of the most popular news destinations on the Web.