News organisation Yahoo7 has been fined $300,000 after one its journalists published a story that caused a Melbourne murder trial to be aborted.

Sydney journalist Krystal Johnson was convicted of sub judice contempt of court after writing an article during the trial of Mataio Aleluia, who was charged with the murder of his partner.

The story, titled "Man paused to take a 'smoke break' while bashing girlfriend to death", contained prejudicial information that had not been heard by the jury.

It was published directly to the website by Johnson without being checked by a more senior editor, in breach of company policy, the court was told.

The article remained on the Yahoo7 website for more than four days, but was removed after the organisation discovered it had caused the jury to be discharged.

The trial was aborted on its fourth day, and a second trial was held a few months later, which resulted in Aleluia being found guilty.

Justice John Dixon said aborting the trial had caused "great inconvenience and stress to the accused, the victim's family and witnesses".

"It wasted considerable time and significant court resources," he said.

He said Yahoo7 was primarily responsible for the article being published, and he convicted the company of sub judice contempt of court.

He said he believed Yahoo7 was more focused on reporting immediacy and profits than professionalism.

'Chilling Facebook premonition' put article in contempt

The court had previously found that in the article, Johnson suggested Aleluia had been violent towards his girlfriend, Brittany Harvie, in the past.

A heading towards the end of the article said: "Brittany Harvie predicted her death on Facebook".

Johnson wrote: "In March last year, Ms Harvie posted a chilling Facebook premonition that she would one day be harmed by the man she loved."

She then used quotes Ms Harvie had written on her Facebook page about their relationship, including: "It won't be long and he will put me six feet under. I love him until the day he kills me. He needs a punching bag, we all do."

Justice Dixon said Johnson had shown remorse and experienced shock and shame since the article was published.

"She has been subject to criticism of her ability and professionalism as a journalist and has suffered attacks on social media to such an extent that she has suspended her accounts," he said.

The journalist was given a two-year good behaviour bond.

The court heard while the offending conduct was serious, Yahoo7 and Johnson had taken steps to ensure it would not happen again.

Johnson was not present in court.