Audrey Korte had been with the Wisconsin State Journal for just a couple of months when summer vacations in the newsroom started piling up. Eager to be accommodating and productive, she agreed to cover a story for a colleague who was leaving on a mid-July break. The assignment was to report on the proposals that had been submitted to the city of Madison for the redevelopment of the Brayton Lot, a downtown Madison parcel on the 300 block of East Washington Avenue. As the last large undeveloped block in downtown Madison, many believe the project could help address the city’s housing shortage. 

The story Korte ultimately submitted was published online at madison.com and across the top of the front page of the Sunday, July 13, issue of the Wisconsin State Journal. It contained several factual errors and was ultimately pulled from the site on Wednesday, July 16. A re-reported story was published on Thursday, July 17, with an editor’s note explaining that the original story “contained incorrect information and quotes that were created by an unauthorized use of AI, which does not adhere to the Wisconsin State Journal's editorial or ethical standards.” Korte says she was fired the same day by executive editor Kelly Lecker, who called her on the phone with someone from human resources on the line. 

After the State Journal posted the re-reported story, Lecker declined requests from Isthmus to provide clarification on how Korte’s story made it through the editing process. Tracy Rouch, director of communications for Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based newspaper chain that owns the State Journal, did not return a phone call. Korte also declined to talk. Isthmus covered the incident in a news story and column that, in the absence of input from the State Journal, speculated that staffing issues might have played a role in the publication of the inaccurate story. 

Korte recently sat down with Isthmus for an in-person interview and today is releasing a public statement on what she calls the “biggest mistake” of her career. 

Isthmus emailed Lecker and assistant city editor Kirsten Adshead for comment. “We do not comment on personnel matters,” Lecker responded. 

Korte says she takes full responsibility for the story’s “multiple factual inaccuracies,” including a made-up source, which she attributes to the use of a company-installed AI program on her work computer. But she says there is more to the story, including a breakdown of editorial oversight and an understaffed newsroom. She says she was terminated without a formal investigation and was not given a chance to explain herself to her superiors or colleagues. 

“I don’t think the newspaper acted with fairness, transparency, accuracy or accountability,” she says. “That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to set the record straight. I feel it is my duty as a journalist to provide answers.” 

Journalists “don’t take an oath of duty,” she adds, “but I try to live my life as if I did.”

Before joining the State Journal, Korte was the lone news reporter at another Lee Enterprises paper, The Chippewa Herald in Chippewa Falls. There she wrote stories, took photos, created video and audio reports, producing between seven and 16 articles a week, she says: “My numbers were staggering.”

Korte says her work was getting national attention and she received an attractive offer to cover local government at the State Journal. She was up for the challenge: “I wanted to see if I could keep up with the big boys in Madison,” she says. Korte was also eager to share the workload with colleagues and to have some more personal time.

Korte started working remotely for the State Journal in May 2025; her first day in the Madison newsroom was June 9.

Just one month later, on Tuesday, July 8, development reporter Nicole Pollack asked Korte to cover the Brayton Lot story. To prepare, Korte gathered stories on the topic previously written by Pollack and former longtime city reporter Dean Mosiman, who retired in 2024. Korte also requested copies of the redevelopment proposals from Jaymes Langrehr, the public information officer for the city’s planning department. Her deadline was Friday morning.

Still waiting for the proposals Thursday morning, Korte reported on another story on her list: the new SSM Health outpatient center in Sun Prairie. She says she felt exhausted at the time, a result of chronic insomnia associated with late-stage Lyme disease.

By midday Thursday, she heard from Langrehr, who sent her one submitted proposal. Korte wrote a draft of the story that afternoon but Langrehr let her know later that night there was a second proposal. There was actually a third but Langrehr tells Isthmus that it did not arrive in the proper inbox until Monday, likely due to its size. He says that is why he told Korte on Friday morning there were just two proposals. 

Each submission ran about 80 pages, says Korte, and she read them all. She knew she’d have to rewrite the story so she reached out to her boss, city editor Phil Brinkman, who was getting ready to go on vacation the next day, to tell him about the delay.

On Friday morning, Korte rewrote the story and also attended the regular weekly staff meeting with her colleagues. She says she made it clear to the only editor at the meeting, assistant city editor Adshead, that she was exhausted and stressed over the story. She also shared that she found the newsroom’s “lack of vacation planning chaotic” and that it was adding to her stress. 

After the meeting, Korte finalized her draft and then ran it through the company-installed AI program on her work computer. She says she can not recall exactly what she asked the program to do. “I have no idea,” she says. “I don’t remember the prompt and I don’t have a screen shot of it.”

In the past Korte says she has used AI as an editing tool, asking it to check her copy for spelling, grammar and style and to look for possible cuts.

The post-AI version of Korte’s Brayton story quoted a fictitious business owner — “Marcus Lee,” co-owner of “Capitol Grounds Café on East Main Street” — and included made-up information about the proposal submitted by Neutral, a Madison real estate development firm.

Korte says she read the final draft but, being new to Madison, the made-up information did not jump out at her. She was convinced she had lifted the quote herself from a previous State Journal story in order to provide a human element. “I was absolutely sure it wasn’t pulling from the AI universe. I read it so many times. I just didn’t see there were any changes there. The deadline was right on my doorstep.”

She cut and pasted the piece into the paper’s content management system and sent it to assistant city editor Adshead. Both Brinkman and Lecker were out that day.

Korte said she was surprised to see the story online less than 10 minutes later. No questions from Adshead or anyone else; no suggested changes or line edits, says Korte. “I don’t blame the editor for my mistakes,” she says. “I don’t know that newsrooms do hardcore fact-checking anymore. But I did think it was very rushed.”

Korte updated the story on Saturday with comments from developer Curt Brink, who reached out to Korte after he saw mistakes about his firm’s proposal in her original story. She says that a “weekend editor” handled the updates.

Korte was still at the Chippewa Herald when Microsoft Copilot, an AI program, was installed on her work laptop. She says it was part of a security upgrade implemented after Lee, which operates in 72 markets in 25 states, was the victim of a major cyberattack in February.

Korte says a newsroom leader there showed staff how to use the AI program during a remote staff meeting. “He said it could be useful and to play around with it.”

She says she didn’t experiment with the program while at the Herald because she did not use her work laptop much. At the State Journal, she was encouraged to use her laptop and it was then she started to play around with Copilot.

She says she was never presented with a written AI policy at either the Herald or State Journal and never trained on AI in either newsroom.

Korte insists she knew it would be unethical to use ChatGPT or any other generative AI program to write stories, but thought she was free to use the program on her computer to check her copy for such things as grammar, style and spelling: “I believed this was a trusted newsroom-approved AI program.”

Questions remain about Korte’s first draft that are not necessarily tied to AI. She referred to Marsha Rummel as a current Madison alder and says she can’t remember whether she noted that quotes she pulled from previous reporting were defined as such.

Korte has been looking hard for another job in the communications field, but so far has had little luck. “Nobody will call me back,” she says. “I’m too toxic now.”

She lost her health insurance when she lost her job. Her credit cards are maxed out and her unemployment check doesn’t cover her rent. She doesn’t want to leave Madison, but might have to.

In early August she received a determination letter from the state Department of Workforce Development, finding that her “discharge was not for misconduct or substantial fault connected to her employment. The employee was discharged due to performance. She was working [to] the best of her ability and had not been warned that her job was in jeopardy.”

In the event of an appeal, the notice added, “The facts show that the employer did not respond during a fact-finding investigation to a written request for information dated 7/29/25.”

Korte says in her personal statement that she was prepared to face consequences for her actions and thought she could find a way to turn this “embarrassing” experience into meaningful reporting. But she says the State Journal refused to properly investigate one of “its biggest embarrassments or report accurately and fully on what happened.”

“I believe it’s important to gather all the facts and allow an employee to explain their actions, motivations, and any assumptions or misinformation they may have acted on, especially when accused of cardinal industry sins. In this case, that didn’t happen. I was never afforded the chance.”

Korte has launched a blog, The Lightship, in which she intends to write about the news industry. The cover photo with her likeness is clearly AI-generated, but not meant to be ironic, she says.

“It was what I could afford.” she says. “If you want to call that out, it’s perfectly fine.

“You know what else is ironic?” she adds. “The only interest I’ve gotten are from companies looking for journalists to train AI in writing.”