The cover of the first issue of the Charlie Hebdo magazine since the attacks in Paris has been revealed, and the majority of the Australian media has chosen to publish it.
The cover depicts a weeping image of the Prophet Mohammed holding up a sign which reads "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) while the headline reads "Tout est pardonne" (all is forgiven).
The latest edition will have a print run of three million and will be published in 16 languages in 25 countries.
However, Australia's Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson says some Charlie Hebdo content could not be printed in Australia under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Most mainstream media outlets across the country displayed the defiant front cover with most citing its newsworthiness as their main reason behind their publications.
The ABC, News Corp Australia websites, the West Australian and ninemsn are among those to publish.
Fairfax publications The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, however, did not show the cover on their websites, while Daily Mail Australia was waiting for its London head office to make the decision.
"It's news and as far as we're concerned we're in the news business," The West Australian editor in chief Bob Cronin told AAP.
"This is not racial, what's racial about it? We've got a picture of Mohammed. What race was he? People confuse the Racial Discrimination Act with cultural comment."
Mr Cronin said prohibitions in the Racial Discrimination Act were regarding race, something beyond a person's control.
"Whereas religion and other things are actually points of view over which you do have control," he said.
Daniel Sankey, editor of news.com.au, said deciding to publish the cover had been a big decision to make and not one they made lightly.
"The release of the first cover since the attack was always going to be a major news story in itself and we had a tighrope to walk on this," Mr Sankey told AAP.
"On one hand, in publishing the cover do we run the risk of offending some of our readers? On the other hand, if we don't publish do we offend many more of our readers who would want us to make a stand against what those attacks in France stood for.
"We thought publishing the cover was an appropriate way to cover the story. We haven't featured it on our home page, we have featured it further down at article level.
"But I think in doing that it was in line with the expectations with the majority of our readers."
An ABC spokesperson said publication of the cover is clearly newsworthy.
"Publication of this image, in its proper context, is in keeping with ABC editorial policies," the spokesperson said.
Comment was sought from Fairfax.
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