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There may be some doubt about whether One Nation has raised more than $2.7m in its Fire the Liar fundraising appeal this week but there is no doubt that the Daily Telegraph handed Pauline Hanson’s party coverage amounting to free front-page advertising.

As the fundraising drive kicked off at 6am on Wednesday, we couldn’t help but notice the Sydney tabloid’s front page. The valuable real estate screamed “Fighting Liar with Fire: One Nation fires back at Labor with $29 campaign fee”, and reproduced both Labor’s ad to supporters and Hanson’s.

Inside, on page six, the newspaper published a large One Nation ad that said: “Stop Labor. Fire the Liar. Donate Now.”

“One Nation has returned serve on Labor’s plea to supporters to donate $27 each to help fight Pauline Hanson’s party, with its own push seeking $29 donations in its bid to ‘Fire the Liar’,” the article said. “One Nation promises to use the funds on billboards, TV and radio ads to oust Labor from government.”

According to a tracker on its website, One Nation claims it has raised more than $2.7m in a donation drive aimed at targeting Labor seats. But that figure is unverified as the party does not disclose its donations in real time and the website provides no details of purported donations.

Full-page coverage of the fundraising continued throughout the week, with headlines including: “Orange flood of cash as Pauline’s People rise up.”

The prime minister had the same reaction to the tabloid’s front page as we did, saying on Thursday that One Nation “had an ad for their fundraising campaign, effectively, free ad in one of the mainstream publications”.

Artificial invention strikes again

The Nine newspapers had another run in with AI this week, publishing a graphic about the South Australian election in the Australian Financial Review that invented several political parties.

Last week the Sydney Morning Herald removed an “unacceptable” opinion piece written by an academic after the AI-detector service Pangram tagged it as AI-generated. The company sent out an email reminding contributors artificial intelligence must not be used to write stories for publication and they must disclose to editors if any AI tools are used.

But the article by an AFR data journalist, Joshua Peach, included a bizarre graphic which depicted preference flows to One Nation from phantom political parties.

According to the piece, parties in the SA election included the “Liberal Catholic Party” and the “Family Guardian Association”. The Labor party was absent.

Curiously, the credited source was the South Australian Election Commission, which surely would know better.

It turns out that, once again, AI was the culprit. Although AI was not used to create the graphic itself it was used in the collation of the underlying data.

The AFR told Weekly Beast: “The graphic has been removed and the story updated to note the use of Gemini in data analysis. The mistakes in the graphic should have been picked up in the production/editing process.”

A correction was added to the article online on Friday after our inquiry.

“A graphic which previously appeared in this story has been removed. It included the names of non-existent political parties in South Australia. The story has also been updated to note the use of Gemini in data analysis and include additional details about preference flows in the seats of Elizabeth and Reynell.”

Logies host blunder

All credit to the media and marketing trade publication Mumbrella for spotting a social media post by the Hollywood Reporter’s Australian edition before it was deleted.

The Australian edition had not even launched its website when the brand posted a supposedly big local scoop on its Instagram account on Wednesday.

“EXCLUSIVE: Patrick Brammall is set to host the 2026 Logie Awards, with sources indicating the actor, writer and comedian has possibly been tapped to lead Australian television’s biggest night.”

Only it was dead wrong. The host was revealed on the same day by TV Week to be the former I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here host Robert Irwin. The Insta post was quickly deleted.

The Hollywood Reporter Australia magazine launches on 22 June and will cost $14.99 an issue.

Wilcox cartoon breach

Six months after the publication of a Cathy Wilcox cartoon in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 January, the Australian Press Council ruled this week that the publications breached its standards of practice. The cartoon was likely to cause or contribute to substantial offence, distress and prejudice, particularly to those who are Jewish, the APC said.

The Wilcox cartoon published after the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach depicts prominent figures above a strip of grass, holding placards and calling for a royal commission while the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is beating a drum, accompanied by the words “BOOM BOOM”.

The APC found the imagery “encodes the antisemitic trope that Jewish people secretly control or manipulate global events, governments, financial systems, or the media”.

It’s been a long six months to this point. A few days after publishing the cartoon in January the SMH and the Age conceded it was divisive and apologised “for the hurt it has caused”.

“This masthead stands in support of free speech, but it acknowledges the harm it is capable of causing,” each paper said. “There is no place in this country for hate speech. There must, however, be room for people to express their views on politics and world events. Wilcox and other cartoonists must be allowed to continue to draw the world as they see it.”

The press council acknowledged that its decision was made in a time of “heightened community sensitivities concerning antisemitism and social cohesion”.

It said it was important to have “robust” editorial processes to “minimise the unintended risk of causing offence, distress or prejudice”.

In the judgment, the press council acknowledged it had given significant latitude to cartoons in the past but noted “that latitude is not unlimited”.

That latitude did extend to a 2019 finding that a cartoon of the tennis player Serena Williams, which drew accusations of racism, did not breach standards

It’s also a change from 10 years ago when a widely criticised Bill Leak cartoon about Indigenous fathers, which received 700 complaints, was found not to breach press standards. The press council declined to sanction the newspaper in the interests of free speech.

“Longstanding tradition dictates that satire and cartooning should be afforded even greater latitude,” it said in 2016.

Citing the Charlie Hedbo terrorist attack, the council said promoting free speech through the publication of two opinion pieces on Indigenous issues in the News Corp daily broadsheet was a more appropriate response.

“The Press Council understands and actively champions the notion that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are the essential underpinnings of a liberal democracy, ensuring that citizens are able to hold powerful individuals and interests accountable, and to promote the contest of ideas that best enables sound policymaking, good government and a strong and open society.”

The Leak cartoon portrayed an Aboriginal father holding a beer can and telling a police officer he could not remember his son’s name. It provoked an angry reaction from Indigenous leaders and many commentators but was vigorously defended by News Corp.

Guardian Australia is not a member of the Australian Press Council but has an independent readers’ editor to investigate complaints and publish corrections and clarifications.

Toohey’s tome

On Friday night the legendary investigative journalist Brian Toohey is launching his new book at a sold-out event at Sydney’s Gleebooks in conversation with the ABC Late Night Live host, David Marr.

A former political and foreign correspondent and columnist for the Australian Financial Review and editor of the 1980s newspaper the National Times, Toohey, 82, was awarded the Walkley award for journalism leadership in 1999.

His most famous story was an explosive royal commission dossier he published in the National Times concerning Kerry Packer, which referred to the late media mogul using the codename Goanna. The documents suggested Goanna was involved in large-scale tax dodging. Packer immediately identified himself, sued and won.

Toohey’s new book, 50 years Before the Mastheads, is a selection of his articles since the 1970s covering corruption, the US alliance, national security and intelligence, secrecy and economic reform.

There are some bombs in the compilation which have not been detonated until now. The book includes unpublished articles on the US government’s deep involvement in the dismissal of the Whitlam government and on the businessmen who allegedly supplied Bob Hawke with prostitutes.