Our two reading voices are named in remembrance of Koda and Queenie, the two dogs from our report. This page explains what the voices are, what the record says about the two dogs, and why we chose their names. The reasons are ours, and we say so where they are.
What the voices are
The voices are artificial. They are not people, and nobody recorded them reading our reports. When you press play on a report, you are hearing speech generated by a computer program.
- How they are made. We use Kokoro, an open-weights speech model released under the Apache-2.0 license, which lets anyone use and inspect it. We use two of its voices: a woman’s voice, which we call Queenie, and a man’s voice, which we call Koda.
- What they read. The audio is generated from the published text of the report, and from nothing else. It is regenerated whenever that text changes, so it does not get ahead of or behind the report.
- What they skip. The voices skip tables and charts, which do not read well aloud. If the audio and the text ever differ, the text is the report.
- How they are labeled. Wherever a player appears it says “AI voice.” The voices have names so you can choose between them. They do not have opinions, and they add nothing to what we published.
Who Koda and Queenie were, according to our report
Koda and Queenie are two dogs that published reports tie to the Gratiot County Animal Shelter. We describe them only as far as the record goes. Everything below comes from our report, From Gratiot County’s Shelter to Research Labs: The Stories of Koda and Queenie, which gives the sources and what each side says.
- Koda was a 3-year-old Malamute, according to a June 2011 CBS Detroit report cited in ours. That report said he was surrendered to the Gratiot County Animal Shelter in June 2007. We have not seen the county’s own record for him.
- Queenie was a female Dalmatian mix. A state senator’s office and Bridge Michigan have described her as a stray from Gratiot County, and a 2019 report by an advocacy group says university records show she came from the county shelter. Wayne State University disputes how her case is presented, and our report prints its response.
- What the two share. Each later gave a name to a bill in Lansing, Koda’s Law and Queenie’s Law. Neither bill has become law.
We have written nothing here about either dog’s personality, history or circumstances beyond that. We do not know more than the record shows, and we will not guess. Where our report says “reported” or “not established,” those words apply here too.
Why we chose their names
Our reason. The story of these two dogs led to records, questions and reporting on how public animal-control decisions are documented. It took us to a county agreement, to board minutes, to a state law that is still on the books, and to records we are still trying to obtain.
Our reason, continued. Our voices read the public record aloud so that more people can hear it: people who prefer to listen, who are driving, who have trouble reading small type, or who never had the time to read a long report. The story of two dogs asked residents to look closer at records most people never see. It seemed fitting to name the voices that carry those records for the two animals whose story asked that of us.
Our reason, in short. Naming the voices is how we honor Koda and Queenie: by letting what we learned because of them be heard by more people.
What the names are, and are not
- The names are a dedication. They are not a claim about any living or dead animal.
- The voices do not speak for Koda or Queenie, and they are not meant to sound like them or stand in for them.
- The names do not add to, change or soften anything in our report. The report is the record of what we found; the names only honor the two dogs at its center.
- Reading a report in the Queenie or Koda voice means exactly what reading it silently does. The facts, sources, corrections and limits are the same.
The line that appears with every player reads: “Our two reading voices are named in remembrance of Koda and Queenie, the two dogs from our report.”
What you can do
- Read the report, or listen to it in either voice.
- Check the corrections log. This page and the wording of the dedication are noted there.
- Tell us if we got anything wrong, about the dogs, the voices or this page. Write to contactus@gcwhistleblower.com and name the sentence. If something here is wrong, we will fix it and say so publicly.