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An illustration of a laptop with hands coming out of the screen, typing.
On July 16, the Wisconsin State Journal pulled a story about redevelopment proposals for the Brayton Lot in downtown Madison that had run on the front page of the Sunday paper four days before. An editor’s note explained the article had “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.”
The note also said the paper regretted the incident and was “taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The article by Audrey Korte, a former Chippewa Herald reporter who started at the State Journal in May 2025, quoted the purported owner of a downtown coffee shop that does not appear to exist and incorrectly stated that the city was now weighing two redevelopment proposals for the Brayton Lot site, when in fact there are three. It also referred to Marsha Rummel as a current Madison alder. The article was “re-reported” to remove these errors.
Isthmus’ Jason Joyce, who broke the story about the missteps, tried to get a comment from the State Journal’s executive editor, Kelly Lecker. She said she was tied up in meetings but referred him to Tracy Rouch, director of communications for Lee Enterprises, the company that owns the State Journal. Rouch never called Jason back.
I emailed Lecker again for this column, saying I thought it was important to clarify “how the original piece used AI and the steps it went through before being published.” I acknowledged it might be a “difficult conversation” but argued it was an important one for “transparency and trust and one that impacts all who consume news as well as those of us who work in local news.”
Lecker declined an interview. “As you can imagine,” she wrote in an email, “this is a sensitive personnel matter and I’m not able to talk about it at this time.”
Korte, who is no longer with the State Journal, also declined in an email to comment. So, for now, any details about how Korte or others at the paper may have used or misused AI remain unknown, and trust me, people in this town have questions! That is understandable as there are nearly daily takes in the media on the perils and promise of generative AI.
Given the lack of primary sources willing to detail what happened, I queried some of the techies that Isthmus works with at StartingBlock, a coworking space for startups and entrepreneurs. Scott Mosley, StartingBlock’s CEO, says the explanation is likely pretty simple: Someone could have asked ChatGPT or Claude AI to “prepare a story that summarizes development proposals for the Brayton Lot that includes quotes from local business owners.”
“It probably doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that,” adds Mosley. “You tell AI what you want it to do and it goes off and does it.”
Sometimes the chatbot spits out an “AI hallucination” — that is, misleading, incorrect or made-up information. Perhaps that’s how fabricated quotes from the alleged business owner made it into the original Brayton Lot article.
But AI is not the real issue here. The bigger problem is how a story with fabricated names and quotes made it through an editor to the front page of the State Journal’s Sunday edition. In the end, it’s likely more a reflection of the state of journalism than a systemic problem with AI usage.
Newsrooms everywhere, including at the State Journal, are a shadow of their former selves. Experienced reporters and editors are mostly gone, due to downsizing and retirements. New, often young staffers, are under pressure to do more with less, often with minimal supervision and guidance. And some newspaper chains have centralized copy desk operations.
What could possibly go wrong?
Katy Culver, director of UW-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Center for Journalism Ethics, says the news about the State Journal’s AI mishap traveled far and wide.
“I’m hearing from people across the country,” including from journalism educators, she says. “I was in a meeting of a board that deals with ethics and standards and it was the chit chat of five minutes of the board meeting.”
But Culver sees the use of AI as more of a sidenote. “The larger story here is that loss of labor for local news — that a hallucination got into the A1-above-the-fold story in a local newspaper because there may not have been local editing. To me, that’s the story.”
Though unconfirmed by State Journal management, a source within the paper says the story was edited by someone in the La Crosse area. Lee also owns the La Crosse Tribune.
Culver points to ongoing downsizing efforts in the industry, including one in our backyard. Earlier this year, Allen Media Group announced it would be moving all of the weather coverage at its 27 television stations, including WKOW in Madison, to the Atlanta-based Weather Channel, which is also owned by Allen.
“They were within an inch of firing all of their [local] meteorologists,” says Culver. The centralized coverage, “while a huge cost-saving measure,” would have been extremely damaging to the communities served by those local stations, she says. “What is the most trusted element of local news?” she asks. “It is weather.”
Allen reversed course quickly after substantial pushback. But, says Culver, “That was a really dangerous moment. Meteorology in local news is journalism.”
A new survey by Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News shows just how much the local news landscape has changed in the last couple of decades. In 2002, according to the survey, there were about 40 journalists per 100,000 residents on average. Now there are 8.2 — a 75% decline.
More than 1,000 or one-third of all counties in the country do not have a full-time local journalist at all.
Dane County actually fares pretty well in the survey, with 16.6 journalists per 100,000 residents. Suffolk, Massachusetts, leads the pack with nearly 29 local journalists. But that really shows you just how bad things are.
People who follow the news in Madison are well aware of how few reporters remain in the community and how much local news now goes uncovered. Long gone are the days when both The Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal had dedicated beat reporters covering the city, county and courts. And it’s not getting better. In just the last 14 months, the State Journal laid off a longtime editor and lost three veteran reporters to retirement — Dean Mosiman (city beat), Ed Treleven (courts), and David Wahlberg (health). It also lost longtime arts reporter Gayle Worland to UW-Madison. Reporter Chris Rickert has lately been covering both the courts and K-12 education for the paper, an impossibly broad beat.
Seeking additional perspective, I asked Claude AI, “What do you think a newspaper that reveals it has published a story with made-up content should do to reestablish trust with readers?”
The suggestions were on-point. “Immediate transparency,” was the recommended first call to action: “The newspaper should publish a prominent correction or retraction that fully explains what happened, without downplaying the severity. Readers deserve to know exactly what was fake, how it was discovered, and why their systems failed. Half-measures or vague language about ‘inaccuracies’ will only deepen suspicion.”
As noted, the State Journal did publish a retraction — and rewrote and posted a corrected version of the story — but the editor’s note was not detailed and did not identify what was fake in the story. Claude also recommended “accountability measures,” meaning “clear consequences for those responsible.” The paper has been silent on who did what and has not identified any systemic changes that would prevent similar mistakes in the future.
Just for the further fun of it, I asked Claude AI to comment on a situation where the editor says she cannot provide more details because it’s a “sensitive personnel matter.”
“That response would likely backfire and further erode reader trust,” Claude replied.
And, though I didn’t connect the dots, Claude did. “The Wisconsin State Journal’s approach, if that’s what they’re saying, risks making readers feel like they’re being brushed off. They deserve a fuller accounting of how fabricated content made it to the front page. Trust rebuilds through openness, not through maintaining institutional privacy at the expense of public accountability.”
In other words, Claude nailed it!
