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The Australian Jewish News has removed an article which decried the treatment of the executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, by members of the Jewish community.

Regular AJN contributor and lawyer Nomi Kaltmann had a piece commissioned by the newspaper’s editor-in-chief , Gareth Narunsky, which said that watching Schwartz’s testimony at the royal commission was “extremely upsetting” despite their obvious political differences.

“I suspect we would disagree about almost everything when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Kaltmann wrote. “But to me, that isn’t really the point.”

In a piece headlined “Every Jew, regardless of politics, remains part of our people”, she wrote if you “call a fellow Jew a kapo or compare them to a rat, you have lost the moral high ground”.

“No matter how strongly you disagree with someone’s politics, using language like this means that you have become part of the problem,” said the article published online at the AJN on Friday 3 July.

On Monday the article was taken down without explanation, but the URL headline is still visible. Kaltmann also published it on her own website.

Kaltmann told Weekly Beast the way Schwartz has been spoken to is abhorrent: “I don’t think what I wrote for the Australian Jewish News was controversial or edgy. I think it was a much-needed message for people to remember to speak to everyone with respect. I’m sad it was pulled. I think this reflects a broader issue society is facing on the right and left about a lack of civil discourse between people who disagree with each other.”

Schwartz said her critics had used the German word Judenrat, meaning “Jewish council” and referring to the Jewish administrative bodies set up in Nazi-occupied Europe, but also said she had been depicted as a rat. Kapo is an insulting word for Jews who allegedly collaborated with the Nazis within concentration camps.

Rival community newspaper the Jewish Independent reported that Narunsky “was told to remove the article by Publisher Bob Magid and Director Anna Pasternak after they received complaints about publishing an article that mounted any kind of defence of Schwartz”.

Narunsky, Magid and Pasternak did not respond to a request for comment.

Tough gig

It has been described as the worst job in the Canberra press gallery: national political editor for News Corp Australia.

The role requires the journalist to serve all the tabloid editors in the Murdoch stable including the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, and cover a lot of ground with limited resources, sources say.

If the length of time the position has been vacant is any indication, many potential applicants would agree. When Clare Armstrong resigned from the position in October last year to join the ABC as chief digital political correspondent, the company advertised the position. That was nine months ago and it remains unfilled.

The job ad says you need to be “passionate about politics and driven to break big stories that captivate millions of Australians” and “a dynamic and driven senior journalist”.

Politico’s first steps

One outfit that hasn’t had any trouble filling roles is Politico, which has hired three gun reporters for its Canberra Playbook launching on 17 August.

The US political news site announced in February it was bringing its brand of insider politics and policy news to the Canberra press gallery.

Led by Australia launch editor Ryan Heath, Politico has hired former Guardian Australia chief political correspondent and Australian Financial Review reporter Paul Karp as editor. Karp says Politico will “show you the personalities driving politics, hold power to account, and put Auspol in global context while speaking to and growing an Australian audience”.

Finn McHugh and Miriam Webber join as inaugural Canberra Playbook co-authors.

Webber has five years under her belt as politics and public sector reporter for the Canberra Times and is a former producer for Politico in Europe.

McHugh joins from another startup, Capital Brief, where he was federal political reporter but he has more than a decade of experience in the gallery with SBS, the Canberra Times and News Corp.

Canberra Playbook, a newsletter covering federal parliamentary politics and policy, will launch when parliament returns from winter break.

Heath, an Australian journalist who has worked extensively overseas, says Australians “need journalism that both explains power dynamics and connects the dots globally”.

Tripped up by details

For a Liberal party member and policy consultant who formerly advised federal and Victorian Liberal ministers, Terry Barnes appears to be quite confused about the political scandal involving former Liberal leader John Pesutto and his MP Moira Deeming last year.

Writing in the Australian Financial Review where he is a regular columnist, Barnes took aim at the “tired, bloated and ethically-tainted Labor government of beleaguered Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan”.

But when it came to the travails of his own side, he got somewhat mixed up.

Deeming successfully sued Pesutto for defamation when he wrongly implied she was associated with neo-Nazis after they gatecrashed a rally at parliament she attended.

Barnes said Pesutto expelled Deeming but the expulsion occurred following a party room vote.

The Liberal insider then claimed the need for Pesutto to pay Deeming big damages “cost him his inner-Melbourne seat, causing a by-election”. Pesutto remains in his seat and there was no byelection but he did step down as Victorian opposition leader.

The AFR did correct the expulsion error, but despite our email pointing out the other errors, the article has not been corrected.

Unexpected intrigue

There were a couple of unexpected gems delivered by the ABC ombudsman, Fiona Cameron, at the royal commission on Thursday which saw the public broadcasters defend their complaints processes.

Cameron revealed she was “investigating something” after a special request from the ABC board. She apologised for being “ambiguous” but added the project was nothing to do with the Middle East conflicts. Intriguing.

Cameron also said being in the office of ombudsman had taught her that journalists were not always the best people to investigate journalism complaints.

“To be perfectly blunt, I don’t feel that journalists are very good at … assessing their own,” Cameron said of her staffing issues. “So I haven’t had a lot of success in employing journalists to investigate complaints about journalism. To be perfectly frank, I do have an opening in my team now, and I am encouraging internal and external people to come through.”

Tele’s right moment

News Corp served up glowing coverage of Pauline Hanson’s UK trip this week, with headlines such as “Brave Pauline gets Tommy’s approval” and “Pauline shares a pint with her buddy Holly”.

The former headline was on a report about the One Nation leader meeting up with the anti-Islamic, far-right political activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson who recently called for his supporters to take to the streets across the UK over a bloody knife attack in Belfast.

In an editorial, the Daily Telegraph described Hanson’s meeting in a pub with former pop star Holly Valance as a “compelling cultural moment”.

The Australian singer and actress has become conservative royalty and is credited with encouraging Nigel Farage to stand for MP.

The Tele wrote:

As political events go, it sure beats Prime Minister Anthony Albanese palling around with podcasters or trying to be a DJ.

‘Nothing like a beer with your mate at the pub on a hot day,’ Valance wrote of her meeting with Hanson. Good on her for taking an interest in our democratic scene.