For newspaper watchers (and anyone who wants to continue reading them) two things are worth a look next week.

The first is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which is expected to post a whopping quarterly slump in net earnings on May 6, further highlighting the extent to which newspapers are being hit by both the internet and the global financial crisis. The second event will unfold on the same day in Washington DC, when a subcommittee of the US Senate will launch what looks like a vain quest to save this seemingly moribund industry.

John Kerry, the Massachusetts Senator and former presidential candidate, will open hearings of the subcommittee on communication and technology in an effort to staunch the massive losses in US newspapers. When he took on the committee chairmanship in February, Kerry announced he was eager to “promote greater diversity in media ownership.” It was a nice laudable aim. But since then his priorities have shifted to the very survival of newspapers, after witnessing last month’s near implosion of his local paper, the Boston Globe, which threatened to close down altogether if unions didn’t agree to US$20 million in cost cuts.

The Globe lost US$50 million last year and without drastic action will lose another US$85 million this year.

Just yesterday the journalists’ union, the Newspaper Guild, struck another of its increasingly humiliating deals when it gave the nod to the Boston Globe’s parent company, the New York Times, and agreed to a 5% salary cut for staff. The Times hopes to save US$4.5 million this year by furloughing staff and reducing their pay while not guaranteeing any further job losses.

Last month the parent company of the Chicago Sun Times, the Sun Times Media Group, filed for chapter eleven bankruptcy, becoming the fifth US newspaper group to do so in the last few months.

Kerry says he is striving to ensure the “vital public service newspapers provide does not disappear” but how his committee will achieve this is not yet known. Perhaps he will pick up on some of the more imaginative ideas being thrown around, such as US Senator Benjamin Cardin’s private bill to allow media companies to become not-for-profits with tax breaks to run newspapers.

In Australia we haven’t seen the same level of media bankruptcies because our economy is not as dire. It’s also an unintended benefit of our highly concentrated media ownership. Because there are relatively few small players, less of them go bust.

Fairfax and News Limited, which between them own almost everything, haven’t yet hit rock bottom. But the same underlying sickness threatens their very survival too. So perhaps it’s time our legislators started thinking about the issue as well. Do we need a public trust for journalism? Should we reform the media ownership controls again? The industry is certainly beginning to scream out for help and it looks like it will need some very creative thinking to ensure it has a viable future.