Mr Murdoch, tear down this wall!

Rupert Murdoch, the domineering CEO of media titan News Corporation, has added another newspaper to his gargantuan collection: The Daily. But there is a twist - this new publication is a newspaper without the paper. The publication is entirely digital, channelled through the Apple iPad tablet. And in a bid to find a solution to the floundering profits of the media industry, The Daily's content is entirely shielded by a paywall, with only paying subscribers granted access.

This is only the most recent salvo in Mr Murdoch's war on free content: his most lucrative publications - The Times, The Sun and the Wall Street Journal - all resist giving their content away for free. But this is a strategy that must be changed; for the good of the media, the web community - and News Corp itself.

The reason paywalls may bear less fruit than Mr Murdoch expects is down to a miscalculation: he underestimates the capacity of people to live by the gospel that 'the best things in life are free'. As long as there continues to be an abundance of high-quality free content available at the click of a mouse, people will continue in their reluctance to pay. Even if The Daily manages to produce the finest news content on the market - a doubtful prospect - most will still opt for the free sources on the basis of principle.

This was all too true of The Times. Since the introduction of that paper's paywall, much of its online following has deserted it, finding refuge on the free sites of competitors like the Guardian and The Independent. Visits to The Times' websites have decreased by a some 87 per cent, crashing from 21 million hits per month down to a far humbler 2.7 million. The strategy failed to increase sales of the print edition, and the income gained from those who purchased the £2 weekly subscriptions to the site was largely negated by a rapid fall in advertising revenue.

Peering into his crystal ball, Murdoch prophesies a boom in the tablet industry to fuel sales for his new 'paper' and thus vindicate his paywall policy. It is not impossible that we are now on the cusp of a vast increase in tablet sales, but with an abundance of free news apps on offer The Daily would need to bring something truly exceptional to the iPad to achieve the mass appeal its developers hope for. And they may well end up watching their envisioned subscription profits trickle away before their eyes, given that operating the subscription via iTunes will allow Apple to take 30 per cent of the sale by way of commission.

He may feel, with all the stubbornness of an old man well accustomed to profiteering, that it is too late to back down now: the creation of The Daily was far from cheap. Reports suggest that News Corp invested up to $30 million in developing the publication, with estimated weekly running costs of $500,000 to pay for his 100-strong phalanx of newly-hired journalists. But it is not too late to open it up, nor to reopen his other publications to the world beyond the paywall. A more sophisticated advertising strategy, using the latest developments in consumer-tracking technology could go some way to making up the shortfall in income.

News well told is like a drug: if you like it, you inhale it time and time again. A return by News Corp to the open web would again broaden the diversity and quantity of the readership - a natural aspiration of journalism of any stripe. After all, news is to spread, not sheltered. If Murdoch decides to perservere with fortifying his paywalls, it may prove as futile as old King Canute wishing to turn back the tide.