Voluntary redundancies at The West. Last Friday, around one in eight journalists at The West Australian‘s 160-person newsroom put up their hands for a voluntary redundancy. It’s expected most of the 20, which Crikey is told includes some veterans at the paper, will be allowed to leave. Depending on the grades of these journalists (i.e. how much they’re paid), it’s possible this will be enough to meet the savings target identified by the management of West Australian Newspapers.

Management had previously told The West Australian house committee it was targeting around 30 redundancies from the paper. The ABC reported another 20 job cuts were possibly to come from The Sunday Times (which WAN is trying to buy from News Corp — the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissioner has yet to approve the merger but is expected to). The company is being flexible. Two months ago staff were given the opportunity to move to four-day-a-week rosters to save the company money, which could limit the number of redundancies necessary.

Nonetheless, Crikey‘s sources say a high level of anxiety and anger remains in the newsroom. Seven West Media chief executive Chris Wharton announced the job cuts in an email to staff on June 29. That email said the cost-cutting was necessary due to the unstable economic environment and changes in the media industry. Pending that ACCC approval, West Australian Newspapers will operate a daily monopoly in WA papers. — Myriam Robin

Cure what Ailes you at Fox News. This morning’s Australian Financial Review had a New York Times feature on page 16 that said the Murdoch sons — Lachlan and James — are now looking to “take on” Roger Ailes, the controversial head of Fox News. Overnight the story moved on from that effort and became a case of “Goodbye Roger, been nice knowing you”, as Gabriel Sherman, writing for New York magazine, reported that 21st Century Fox co-chairmen Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan, as well as CEO son James, had agreed to remove Ailes.

But our trio of Murdochs can’t agree on the timing and nature of Roger’s exit. The magazine reported that the Murdochs:

“… have settled on removing the 76-year-old executive, say two sources briefed on a sexual-harassment investigation of Ailes being conducted by New York law firm Paul, Weiss. After reviewing the initial findings of the probe, James Murdoch is said to be arguing that Ailes should be presented with a choice this week to resign or face being fired.”

A sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Ailes by former presenter Gretchen Carlson has sparked the internal investigation, but the inquiry ordered by the company from an outside law firm has expanded into a wide-ranging inquiry into Ailes’ controversial management style, according to the report. — Glenn Dyer

IT news service Delimiter closing? Just one year after re-booting subscription tech site Delimiter, press gallery-based tech journo Renai LeMay could put it back into cold storage, after announcing to his readers this morning he’d accepted a job with an ICT consultancy and would no longer be writing for the site.

LeMay founded Delimiter in 2010, but shut it down for 12 months from July 2014 to take a gig as a political adviser for Greens Senator Scott Ludlam. When that role ended, he crowdfunded $33,000 (well over his goal of $25,000) to relaunch Delimiter and to fund him writing a book about Australian tech policy in the process. The book is still coming, he told readers in a post today. But the website, well, “it’s not clear yet”:

“A number of discussions are continuing behind the scene. While that process progresses, the site will continue to publish articles penned by my excellent writing contractor Daniel Palmer, as well as syndicated pieces.

“I will let readers know when a final direction is chosen, especially the many readers who have become paid members of the site. In the event that the site does not continue as it is, obviously the undelivered portions of those memberships will be reimbursed …

“At this point, and especially with all that I have been through over the past 12 months, I feel as though I have done everything I want to do as a technology journalist. I have written every article that I have ever wanted to write in this field, and, I hope, I have made a difference. I have tried to do my job as a journalist and hold those in power to account.

“With this year’s Federal Election done and dusted, it feels like a good time to tap out and leave this task to the many other talented journalists in this field.

— Myriam Robin

So close, but wrong bald union guy. Australia’s unionists were much amused by page 2 of The Australian Financial Review today. In a story about how the Maritime Union of Australia is facing a $10 million legal bill after an adverse Federal Court ruling, the Fin puts a picture of the MUA’s Chris Cain. But the picture isn’t of Cain at all, but of the CFMEU’s Joe McDonald. In the Fin’s defence, both men are bald, and McDonald is wearing an MUA shirt in the picture …

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There goes the tech boom. Netflix cracked in the second quarter — joining Apple on the list of wounded — as its third-quarter figures next Tuesday morning will confirm. Only Amazon and Facebook are left standing; Alphabet (Google) is doing OK, but is now a “mature” high-growth tech stock (but not as “mature” as the once mighty IBM, which this morning revealed its 17th successive slide in revenues). Wall Street has banished the so-called FANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) to the also-ran list and the shills are now touting, believe it or not, utilities and consumer-facing stocks (retailers and consumer goods companies) as likely successors.

But regardless of Wall Street fashion, there’s just one message from the Netflix quarterly figures this morning: the streaming video giant is “ex-growth” so far as investors are concerned, despite another strong quarter of earnings and revenue growth. But Wall Street is focused on just one measure from the company: current and forecast subscriber numbers from Netflix’s US and international businesses. And these figures fell far short of the company’s own forecasts three months ago and market expectations and as a result, Netflix shares plunged more than 16% in after-hours trading in the US this morning, before ending more than 13% lower around US$85, a six-month low. — Glenn Dyer

Front page of the day. South Louisiana’s The Advocate on the latest chapter of America’s gun crisis …

senselesstheadvocate