Mayfair 101 founder James Mawhinney may be fighting a bankruptcy threat while awaiting a retrial on a case seeking to ban him from advertising and fundraising for financial products in the Federal Court. But he's nothing if not incorrigible.

Several years after his funds management collapsed in a blaze of bad publicity and ASIC investigations, he's cobbled together enough cash to buy the media.com domain. He'll use it, he announced last week, to launch a "global online network" which allows users to respond to false stories and narratives, and has partnered up with both PRWeek and the International Public Relations Association as an awards sponsor.