Gretchen Hoak: Welcome to Informed Reporting. I'm your host, Dr. Gretchen Hoke, former local TV reporter, turned researcher, and journalism professor. My guests today are former local TV reporters Eric Mansfield and Christy Steves. They spent more than two decades at competing stations in Cleveland. Today we explore their experiences covering separate executions and how those became defining moments for both their careers and themselves. At the time of this recording, the botched execution of Krista Pike in Tennessee and the potential of live streaming a military execution were top of mind in the news, making their insight extremely relevant and valuable to understanding the journalists whose job it is to cover these events. Today we talk about what they experienced and how creative outlets like playwriting and photography helped them process the mental and emotional weight of the job once they left the industry. Christy Steves and Eric Mansfield, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate your willingness to talk with me and I'm I'm looking forward to our conversation. to start off, why don't we have both of you just talk a little bit about your careers from journalism leading to where you are now? Eric, why don't you start off?
Eric Mansfield: Well I started out, you in high school newspaper and wanting to go into journalism like a lot of people like Grippin Akron. and then through college I wanted to do radio sports. That was what I thought was drawing me. I ended up in television news. So I I I tell people it's kind of the same church but a different pew. You know, it wasn't what I thought I was gonna do, but it's where the job was and it was very good. So I spent almost twenty years, most of it in the Cleveland market, covering general assignment news and my kids were growing and I had an opportunity to get out and eventually go into public relations. Now the person who talks to the media, also a natural transition for people. But you know, when you cover general assignment news, especially in Northeast Ohio, you can cover a sinkhole one day, you can cover LeBron James the next day. And and you just you never know what you're gonna cover. So it was a very exciting time and a tough time to process too when looking back.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: I got into journalism. I call I call it a fluke. I'm horrible at math. So I not I knew I could not go into any math-related fields. and I've always liked to write. And a high school teacher of mine, my senior year, encouraged me to get on the ne the school newspaper, and I loved it. And he also encouraged me, as did my father, to get into journalism. so that's what I did. fell in love with it. And like Eric was mentioning, to me it was like an adventure every day. You you drive into work and you have no idea what where your day's gonna take you. you know, depending on what assignment, you know, that you're given. And for me, that was one of the the thrills for me is, you know, I I always called it an adventure. we got to do things that other people don't get to see and experience. and and meet people. I'm a people person, always meeting new people, you know, through this industry.
Gretchen Hoak: Is that what kept you in it for so long? Two decades in in local news is nothing to to shake a stick at. Is that why you, kept coming back to it?
Kristy Steeves: For me, yes. there was a lot about it that I really enjoyed. there is a form of creativity. Yes, we have to kind of follow a standard journalistic rule in writing, who, what, when, where, how, and why. but for me, I you know, I I really enjoyed working with the videographers that are creative. So every day we really worked hard at trying to come up with new ways of telling a story that would engage the viewer. So that part I really enjoyed along with the teamwork, the camaraderie that I had at the TV station where I worked.
Eric Mansfield: it's addicting. The storytelling part is addicting. The adventure's addicting. I think when I knew that I had a really cool job was the station did a thing one time where they auctioned off be a television reporter for a day kind of thing. And people were actually paying to do what Christy and I get to do every day. So when when when you're a paid witness to history, it it's really very addicting that you get this adventure. And I think there's a lot of people that get into the media who find that as well and then they have a tough time coming out of it because they know there's very few other careers out there that would give that kind of adventure every day.
Gretchen Hoak: Early on in your career, Eric, did you notice that maybe things were tough? as fun as it is and and as addicting as that adventure and new thing every day can be, when do you feel looking back, you started to notice that some of those stories were starting to take a toll on you?
Eric Mansfield: Tell you, I was probably in the business about six months. And what I noticed were how beat down the people older than me were already. the evening news is 6 and 11, so you're not home at those hours, which means you're not with your family at those hours, and it's very difficult to keep your diet, to keep your exercise, to get good sleep, to have good family relationships. So I could start to see that even just slowly it takes its time. And then when you're the young reporter, they they send you to court, they send you to the murderer. they send you to a lot of these things that are out there. So I could see pretty quickly when I was young, you know, the first time you get to a murder and you're young and you're on the scene and it's real, it's really something. But then when you cover like four of them in five days, it's like I don't even know how to turn this off when I when I come to the weekend. So
Kristy Steeves: Mm-hmm.
Eric Mansfield: but to answer your question, probably about six months in, I started to see this is a lot different than the glamour you think it's gonna be.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, I well, when it really started to affect me, I I was I was struggling. the first couple of years it's new, it's exciting. but I worked the night and weekend shift for ten years. And I had Mondays and Tuesdays off. So I had no social life. I felt very lonely. you know, I was working weekend nights for ten years. so that was really hard. You never know what, you know, shift you're gonna end up. on but ten years took a toll and I was delighted when I got on the day shift. but I probably really started struggling after about ten years. It it it just really started weighing on me. And I just want to mention when Eric mentioned you know you can't your your nutrition eating, it's because we're always out in the field. So you don't have time to run we don't get to go to restaurants. I would bring a bag lunch with me every day you know to be able to eat. so unless you're going through a McDonalds drive thru, yeah, the nutrition's not very good.
Gretchen Hoak: Both of you mentioned in our conversations leading up to this an execution, witnessing an execution is being kind of a defining moment in terms of impact from your job. And I thought that that was really interesting that they were different executions, but both of you mentioned that experience as being kind of a particular turning point. Eric, can you talk a little bit about the execution you witnessed and how that affected you?
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, mine was in two thousand seven and because I was generally the Akron reporter and this was an Akron murder, it was kind of my turn. You know, they with each execution that comes up, they look to the local markets, and usually there's somebody from T V, somebody from radio, somebody from newspaper. And this it was just kind of my turn to go and to do those things. Mine went very much like clockwork. I know it's in the national discussion right again. But the the guy who had done this who had killed these two teenage girls was not remorseful. He got up on the table and cursed at us. There were very few people in the gallery. He laid down. They did the injection. It looked like he went to sleep. They announced that he was dead. But it was still so clinical. It was so callous. It was so rehearsed. I remember what one of the things that really stuck out to me was the hearse driver was already there with the vehicle two hours before this was even going to take place. And I'm like, what kind of job does that guy have? That he's a later going to remove a body of somebody that right now is in eating breakfast. So you know you can't help but take all those things in. I focused on the professionalism of I've got to come out and report exactly what I saw. But then I had to process it for a while. And I know we'll talk about the creative outlets, but that one stayed with me for a while, even though it went well and the person was remorseful. There was no doubt of his guilt or innocence. I think if you were to cover one where somebody still said they were innocent, that would really stay with you after a while. And then just to wrap up, I remember there were people like at the outside the prison who were like praying for us because we had to witness it. And were really very engaged. And I'm I'm anti-death penalty, but I was there for my job and I I felt like it educated me. But yeah, it it stayed with me to watch
Kristy Steeves: Mm.
Eric Mansfield: a guy walk in and then watch his dead body be let out. You don't forget that.
Gretchen Hoak: That was gonna be my question was what part of it do you think it was that really stuck with you and and just I can see where witnessing seeing someone alive and then seeing them die that's not something everyone sees.
Eric Mansfield: Well, it you know, we elect the governor and you know, we elect the legislature and they pass the laws, so in essence we Ohioans voted for this in our state and it gets carried out in our state, whether it's in our name or not. And it just i it was heartbreaking. And I I just know I've had a murder in my own family that you know, th this kind of thing doesn't bring that person back. So for these two girls and their families, I remember there were a few representatives there. We did traditional interviews with what do you think of this? But you c you can't help but think, I got paid to watch someone be put to death. That is not a usual thing that happens in people's jobs.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about your experience? Your execution that you witnessed was a different one from the one that Eric did.
Kristy Steeves: Right. the execution it was Wilford Barry Jr. and he was executed in nineteen ninety nine. not sure if they did it different than when Eric did his, but they did it by lottery. So all e everybody's names I guess got put it put into this lottery and mine got pulled. and I was asked, you know, do you wanna do this? Are you okay doing this? And I went, Yeah. I felt I was the perfect person because I don't have a stand. I'm not for it, I wasn't against it. You know, as a journalist could be neutral. and I also thought I've seen so much I'm just gonna say blood, guts, death, and gore. I had the police beat. so every day I was covering crime, and I thought I've seen it, I can handle this, and it turns out I I did not handle it at all well. it threw me for a loop. this was the first execution in Ohio since nineteen sixty three. They had banned it and then reinstituted it. so there was national media there and I was picked as a a pool reporter. So out of the five journalists that witnessed this execution, three of us I wasn't even working for my T V station per se. I had to work for everybody. So we had to walk out and talk about what we witnessed. So other people could take notes and report on it. And it was very surreal for me. But what my take on this is I feel it was a botched execution. They had been practicing and this is where I spiral down. you know, we get led into the death chamber. His family was in the room next to us and you could hear them crying. They did not want him to be executed. He was called the volunteer. He did not want to spend the rest of his life in prison. So he wanted to be put to death. And that's another reason why I thought I'd be okay with this. He's gonna go to sleep like you do in surgery. He's not gonna feel anything and he's okay with this. but during the procedure, he had a conversation with the warden. We can't hear because there's a g glass between us and you know, the room that He and the warden were in. They they had some conversation. And then the next thing I know, he started gasping for his eyes were open. He started gasping for air and his chest was heaving. And I freaked watching this, like he's suffering. And I know some people might say, you know, he's a convicted killer, but still he's a human being. And to stand there and watch this suffering, I mean, put me into a spiral. and then I went in I've never had a panic attack before or after, but I think I went into full-blown panic attack because when we were, you know, led out of the death chamber to go talk to everybody, I would have I needed about 20 minutes to process this. I I was near tears. I was really upset and and I also felt like I was part of the process. The fact the fact that I was standing there witnessing this, that I was making this okay. so I was struggling with those emotions too, my own personal emotions. But I had this fear that in our industry we have to be stoic. You know, don't show emotion, you don't take sides, and I'm really struggling holding my emo my emotions intact. And I grabbed there were two women, three men, and the woman was with the radio station, and I grabbed her arm and I said, Don't make me go first, don't make me talk first. I I'm about to lose it. And she said, okay, we'll go first. but I think part of why I spiraled into a panic attack is I know the media, having worked in it, I'm thinking, I don't want to end up being the news story. I get up there and I pass out, right? I can't talk. I'm hyperventilating. reporter can't handle, you know, this, or it must have been really bad. You know, I just and I could not control what was going on in my body. long story short, I did get up and speak. but my voice was quivering and I and I just I have to say this because I know you're going to segue into this other topic. But when it was over, I just thought I just embarrassed myself. I just embarrassed my employer. because I I couldn't get a grip on my emotions. And a couple days later got a call from a newspaper in Ohio h wanting to do a story on what I had gone through. Because everybody saw that I was struggling. And and it was about the things that journalists go through and that we don't have safety nets like some professions, like you know, the police department, fire department. They get three days paid leave, you know, if it's a traumatic event. they also go through group counseling. I found this out a week later, a fire chief I was interviewing, and he goes, You're the one that witnessed that execution. I said, Yeah. And he goes, How you doing? And I said, I'm not, I'm not doing good. I had nightmares every night, every night, and this whole thing was looping through my head. E I mean, just over and over and over. And I told him that. He said, I can get you into group counseling. And he explained, you know, if you can get some of the other journalists, you're probably gonna find out you're not alone. And the radio reporter went with me, she was experiencing the same thing. And we went to group therapy, but the the re the newspaper reporter commented that we don't have anything in place to help us. And I took the article to human resources and gave it to them. And the T V station that I work for actually instituted counseling, making that available for the reporters at the T V station where I worked. So it was very traumatic for me.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I just wanted to add that just to paint some context, and I'm it was probably the same, Christy, we're only like fifteen feet away from the table. There is a piece of plexiglass, but you're sitting there in this little gallery of like twenty chairs and nobody's really allowed to speak. So you're close enough where can like feel the people moving around and and their breath and things. It's not like you're watching a TV monitor. You are there. and and so you you can't help but take that in, just the gallows of it. It's dark, it's this room that was there. and you know, secondly was how quickly we get asked to go right back to our jobs. I mean, this was in the Lucasville, I assume it was the Lucasville for you too, Christy.
Kristy Steeves: Yes.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, Lucasville. So we're all the way in southern Ohio, and we get up the next morning and after my morning live shots, they're like, hey, can you s on the way back to Cleveland, can you stop in Columbus and pick up an interview at the State House and do this and do that? It's like it's like my own employer, maybe not intentionally. Just didn't recognize that I'd been through something like this at all. I think the one thing that benefited us in our day in TV is that we were always in teams, or typically so at least I had a photographer. I had somebody in the car I could vent to. There are young journalists now who their whole day is by themselves. And when they end up in a crisis, it has got to be much more difficult on them.
Gretchen Hoak: It's interesting that you mentioned Christy because my one of my questions was, what was the culture around mental health in journalism at the time when you guys were reporting? And it's interesting to me, Christy, that the first thought in your head was, no, I don't want people to know I couldn't handle this as though that wouldn't be a normal human acceptable thing. And I I think that's that probably tells more about what the culture was around sort of mental health and journalism at the time than than anything else.
Kristy Steeves: To seek out counseling on my own. And I I knew I needed help. this stuck with me a year and a half later. Every night I was having horrendous, horrendous like nightmare dreams to the point where I was afraid to sleep. I was maybe getting four hours of sleep a night. And after a year and a half of this, I thought, I'm in trouble, I need help. So I reached out and I was actually sent to a psychiatrist. And I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. and but through the counseling, I realized it wasn't just that event, it was years of pent-up witnessing brutality and death. and then that to me was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, you know, for me, and my system just couldn't handle it anymore. And the counseling did help. me process and and work through that. but yeah, I I don't think you know, the the the industry understands what I'm gonna call us foot soldiers. Eric and I are foot soldiers, the videographers are foot soldiers. We're going out into the battlefields every day. Some sometimes it really felt like that. but I don't think the industry, the managers, understand what we go through as human beings out in the field. So I don't think they know any better.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I like that.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, I think it was really interesting too that you said that they were like, Hey, on the way back, pick up an interview. I think that's also very telling of of just a complete n lack of understanding of what something like an execution, what witnessing that could could have done.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, th there are those of us in the field that actually see it and then there's those that just catch what we get. They're they're in the restaurant, they never go out and hunt for the food and so they don't know what that's like. And I think there was a short lived movement after nine eleven to try to prev you know have some mental health available and then I think it just faded away. I had because I was also in the National Guard, I had gone to Iraq in O three and four. So I had been through a different type of PTSD and I think I was still riding some of that at the time. in two thousand seven when I saw the execution that's there. But I don't think it was intentional, but I'm almost surprised they don't have journalists sign a waiver anymore because if you never know what you're gonna see. I mean can think of a million examples, I'm sure Christie can too, but two stand out to me. One was I came in for a normal daytime shift and I had a daytime fluff story and at eleven AM they called and said, something's happening at the power plant. Run over there, we're sending a live truck at noon. I get over there, there's a kid about nine years old who climbed the fence and had gotten shocked. And he's screaming in pain. And I have to listen to this while I'm setting up for a live shot and then do a live shot and yes, a nine-year-old boy climbed the fence, they're rushing him to the hospital. And then they got my ear saying, okay, thanks, go back to your other story. Like I'm just supposed to turn it off or something. And then the the last moment that I had was in 2012. I responded to Shardin High School here in Northeast Ohio for a school shooting. And I cried on the air. the kids who had been shot and killed were the same age as my sons, who were teenagers. I had just said goodbye to them to go to school and got sent to a school. And as the information's coming out, I just I teared up on the air and I didn't want like Christy, I didn't want to do that in front of people. And but it happened and I'm like, you know what, this is this is too many years and too many things and I I can't I can't sleep and I gotta be able to deal with this.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, you found playwriting as an outlet for your, you know, sort of your trauma and processing all the things that you had seen, you know, on the job. What was it about something like playwriting that that drew you to it and and made it helpful to you?
Eric Mansfield: I think the - the thing is like when you tell people what you do, they're fascinated, but they really don't understand what you've been through. And it's like, I feel like I need to tell some of these things, but I don't know how I can explain it to somebody of what it's like. So I've with the execution I wrote a play called Witnesses to the Execution. It's about journalists sitting around and having dinner after witnessing an execution and debating what they just saw. The play's been picked up, it's run in New York. I've been very happy with it. I wrote a a play called Baron of Brown Street, a full length play. about a homeless guy from Akron who was intentionally set on fire and lived to tell about it and forgave the attackers. It's this incredible moment of forgiveness. I I had to get that story out and that play went on to win national awards at the Kennedy Center. So that there's something from my journalism experience in just about every story. I've got a play that's opening here in November about a military couple and there's a moment in there where a military spouse is screaming at the door, go away, go away, go away, because she knows what news is on the other side of the door. That comes from a real experience of interviewing a military spouse, actually a military mom who saw the men in uniform show up in the driveway. And I feel like that's helping me to get some of those stories out by working them into my plays. So I I feel like for myself I gotta tell these stories and it's a way that worked for me.
Gretchen Hoak: Do think it's in the the writing, writing is is often seen as cathartic. So do you feel as though that process of being able to craft that story and write it also helps?
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, it it does. And you know what? I cry when I'm writing these sometimes because those the the emotions are so vivid that you just have to do this. One of the last stories I covered was a a ba a baby left in a hot car. And I got to the scene, the paramedics are leaving the scene. This was just as they're starting to shift a one man cruise. So I'm having to shoot the video myself. So I shoot the ambulance pulling away, everybody leaves for the hospital. I'm getting a few extra shots in the street and a car flies up there and it's the mother of this baby. She had left the baby with a babysitter who left it in the car. And she collapses in the street and in screen, and I'm shooting this going, what am I doing? How am I standing here filming this woman's the worst moment of her life? And people just don't understand that even if you don't show that in the news, Christy and I witness it. And it just it stays with you. So for me, the plays became a part where I can work some of those stories in. And it it does help me process that those things really happen.
Gretchen Hoak: Had you ever done any writing before? You know, I think it's such an interesting and unique hobby to turn to. had you ever done any writing before that sort of led you in the direction of plays
Eric Mansfield: Well, we're just we're natural storytellers, which is what draws us to this crazy business. So even when I left T V I was still telling stories just for an employer in a different way. And my kids were in theater and I felt like what I was watching that maybe I could write things because working in television, you write words that are meant to be spoken aloud. So I felt like I had to step up getting to playwriting because I already understand what conversational English sounds like. And I just kind of found a niche for it. And now I've had, you know, plays produced all over the world. I've been very, very very fortunate to have my work picked up, but people don't always understand that it's not just fiction that came up in my head. A lot of times it's been sparked by these real experiences. So I've been fortunate that it does give me that creative outlet. But it is cathartic. And there are times when I'm reading all the characters, my wife thinks I'm nuts walking around the house reading all these voices and I'll break into tears and then I'll know I've I think I've captured it the way I should.
Gretchen Hoak: I did forget to ask this before we started talking about the plays, when you did ultimately leave TV, was it the experience with having seen all these things? Was that kind of a motivator to decide that it was time to switch?
Eric Mansfield: It was because I also my kids were growing and I just wasn't seeing them enough and I could see where the business was going and I just I don't need four murders in five days anymore. I d I just there's too many to count. There's too many times. I mean, there's a incredible energy, even just being in court and watching someone found guilty and realizing they're going off to prison and I might run to Wendy's for lunch here in a minute. And it's like you just you can't process those things. And I also knew that the business was shifting to me being by myself a lot. And I did I didn't like that. You don't feel safe like that in the field. And I'm a big guy. I'm 6'2. People leave me alone. But I still you don't feel safe. But I have nobody to process with. You can't come home to your spouse and say, guess what I did today? You know, I interviewed some parents whose kids drowned. You know, you just you don't turn that off and then just sit there with your own kids and have dinner and ask them about their days. But you also don't know how to if you don't let it out, it just eats at you. And it's like, you know, it's it's time. In fact, looking back, I wish I had left five years earlier. Because it does take its toll on.
Gretchen Hoak: You mentioned earlier
Eric Mansfield: And it's hard.
Gretchen Hoak: that you had had that Christy that you developed PTSD. Can was that part of your decision to ultimately leave news? and why did you feel that that was that leaving
Eric Mansfield: Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Hoak: was really the best thing for you?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, well I had actually I called it my exit plan. My husband and I refinanced our house. I I knew it was time to go and Eric, you know, like you, I wish I should have left two years earlier. but I had started making plans to leave. and then I just I kept hanging in there because it was the fear of leaving this job that I truly loved. And it was my identity as well. because you live this job. you're talking twelve, fourteen hour work days. You lived this job. It was a part of who I was, and there was this fear of leaving. So, I should have left earlier, but I kept hanging in there, hanging in there. And like Eric, I I kind of there was a defining moment for me where there was a a story, that just ate at my soul, I was assigned to it and I really didn't wanna do this. Having the police beat, I cultivated a lot of sources. I knew police officers, judges, prosecutors, sheriff's deputies, FBI agents. And you get to know these people. And I'm trying to be careful what I say. I For the sake of this person, but there's a police chief who got caught doing something. And I knew him. I had his cell phone number. I could call him on the weekends if we needed help with the story. because I had developed I wouldn't call a relationship with him like many others. And I was assigned to the story. And I really didn't want to do it. And I I actually called him and I said, I just need you to know I've been assigned to the story. and I'm gonna be as fair, you know, I'm gonna be fair. I have to report it. I feel bad for what you're going through. Do you have any comments? And he said, I didn't do it. And he goes, That's all I'll say and I said, Okay. But it just ate at me, and then I had just covered too a house fire where four children were killed. And you know, I was told you've got to get the parents to talk to you. Yep. And it's not like we wanna do this, but we're told by our boss, you and I'm you know, the the Parents they must have been off at work 'cause it was during the day and the kids perished. And I have to go show up at the house two houses down, knock on the door to ask for an interview. And it just ate at my soul. And I think these two events just kind of was like, I broke. I I I can't I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I broke.
Eric Mansfield: Well and and not only are we pushed to that, we're judged by that. Because if our competitor at TV station number three or T shoot station number four did get the interview or just got there ahead of us, suddenly they're like, What are you doing out there? And it's like, do you know what it's like to knock on that door? And and you never know what you're gonna what you're gonna find.
Kristy Steeves: And I think that was a lot of stress from the job. and I'm I'm sure Eric will concur. A lot of the stress just came from not only minute by minute deadlines, but you've got to get this interview. You've got to get it. And then if we don't, we get called on the carpet. You know, and thinking, Am I gonna get fired? you know, can I think so it was a it it it is a very stressful industry, not just dealing with the things that we saw witnessed, but also, you know, the daily stressors from management as well.
Eric Mansfield: We had one, Christy, you might have been there too. We were in Shreve, which is in Wayne County here. A car of kids got hit by a train, and six kids died, and one kid lived. And my station was all over me to make sure I went to all six family homes to try to get all and I'm like, Do you do you have any idea what you're asking here? You know, you want me to go to all of these grieving teens. Well, we've got to we've got to do our duty. What's this we stuff? It's me out here in the field with a photographer going to six. different homes and then trying to process that and maybe one of them talked to us or something like that and we did our story but then we were judged against how we did with the others. And when you come in the next day, nobody asks how you're doing. They're just like what story you got for us today. It's it's you're appreciated, but it's it's very short lived.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, in much the same way that Eric turned to playwriting, you have become once you left television, you've become quite an accomplished photographer. Can you talk a little bit about what led you to photography and how that became sort of your, you know, thing that that really helped you process your trauma?
Kristy Steeves: Well, it actually goes back to my college days when I was studying journalism. I went to Indiana University and we had to take a radio class, newspaper class, photojournalism and then television to try it all out to see where you wanna go in life. And I absolutely fell in love with photojournalism. And I remember it was my junior year when I took this class and my senior year I took another photojournalism class and I remember thinking, this is really what I want to do. But I thought I can't start a career with two classes. So, you know, I was already immersed in the television route. but there you're still doing pictures, you know, like photogra still photography. And it's the marriage of writing and visuals. And that's what really appealed to me. So I you know, I progress through working in television and I always had a camera. everywhere I went, I was actually photographing weddings and the last couple of years there, and I did have my boss's permission, I started professionally photographing weddings on the weekends. Thinking, this makes me so much happier. I've got some joy in my life. Weddings are happy events. And that actually probably helped me get through things a little bit longer and staying in television because I was doing something to focus on that brought me joy and brought other people joy as well. but when I left, I knew that's the route that I wanted to take. And my thought too when I left the TV in station was. I think you need to pursue this. Don't live life with regrets. You need to give this a try. And I have to say it's the happiest I've ever been in my life is doing photography. I jumped in it both I mean, jumped with both feet. I spent the first seven years, seven days a week, studying, taking education, to try to get to I wanted to Learn as it's not pushing a button. to do professional photography. I ha I say it's it's harder than being a journalist. the things that you have to know and learn to be good at it. And so I I I I excelled at it. I feel like that's my calling in life. But it also brought me great joy because I'm photographing people and I'm making them, you know, understanding posing, how to make a person flatter their body, lighting, you sculpt their face and their body. You can make them look really good. And I loved it when people would cry out of joy, like, my gosh. They're seeing themselves in a totally different way. And I'm helping people see the beauty in themselves, inside and out. And that's where it just brought me a lot of joy that kind of compensated.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, a lot of your creative photography work focuses on humor. And when we talked before, you mentioned that that there is a purpose in that, that sort of focusing on the joy and the humor in that creative work. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, it's it's it's wild 'cause I didn't know this at the time. but like Eric, I ended up writing, and it helped me process. And it probably wasn't until about five or six years ago, that I realized that humor is a coping mechanism for me. you know, trying to stay positive versus dwelling on the negative. So I'm kind of like the class clown. I joke around. I love to make other people laugh, but and it makes me laugh. So I'm very silly and goofy. because it brings humor, laughter, and it is kind of countering the negativity and the PTSD and everything. You know, I don't know if I'll ever you know be completely over. my days working as a journalist, that stuff sticks with you for life. just the the memories and watching all the sadness. There's joy too. you know, every now and then I got to do a nice story, you know, that you know, a positive story, but it was far and few in between. but humor seems to help me cope. I know I've I've seen other photographers with their creative endeavors, they heal themselves through actually facing their pain. And, it's very dark, sad, moody work. and for some reason I don't go there. I I I try to focus on the happiness. I call it keeping my head above water so I don't sink down. I suffered a depression and I'll just put this out there. I ended up one of the reasons well, the main reason I left was I had a nervous breakdown. And it came to me just like that. I'd come home, sat at the table, and instead of crying this time, I was just in a daze, just staring into nothingness. My husband walked in, I heard the door open, and as I turned to him, I literally felt this gravity pushing my body down into the ground. I became so heavy, and I had not acknowledged this. I didn't even know what I was going through. And I turned to him and I said, I am so depressed. And I I l I broke. I started crying hysterically. I couldn't stop. My eyes were swelling like shut, middle of the night. Called my boss and I said, I'm having a nervous breakdown. I won't be at work tomorrow and I never went back. I had to go see five days later, I was still crying, I couldn't eat, I was becoming sick. this was severe. that I went to the hospital and then went to counseling and and the doctor said to me, he kind of put it in his perspective, you're this is not like a light switch. You can turn on and off. He goes, the state that you're in, you've been depressed for years. And looking back later, I was actually able to pinpoint the time frame when I started going down. and I I hung in there for another eight years. So I dealt with a sinking depression for about eight years. And I'd gotten to the point every day I'd get my car to go to work and I would even tell myself, numb out. emotionally numb out so you can get through this day. Because it had taken such a toll on me emotionally and mentally and physically that that was the only way I could survive and maybe that's why I ended up with a nervous breakdown because again that PTSD, you're stuffing and stuffing and stuffing, just numbing out to get through that day. And it hit me hard. It took me over a year to work my way out of a severe depression. But once I was able to I told myself, you gotta get out of this. And when you're depressed that bad, y you don't even want to do anything. And I forced myself to I went to the career center and took a Photoshop class. you know, with the thought of we need to start focusing on the photography. And I slowly pulled myself out of that by focusing on the photography and the creative outlet. And that really helped me recover.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, what do you think your relationship with is, with trauma is today? Are is it something that you still find creeps up with you, or do you feel as though you've through your creative work kind of been able to to really, I guess, expel a lot of that?
Eric Mansfield: Well, I've I've done a lot of work and and Christy, humor becomes one of those things that we use as a defense mechanism and sometimes we're triggered by things we see that take us back to stories and things like that that stay with us and we can't really talk about it 'cause you can't really explain to the people that you're with. I I've done work with a counselor since I came home from Iraq and I think it all kind of came out together. So I I feel like I'm in a good place there that when you're a paid witness to history, sometimes that history is history that stays with you and Christy kinda hit on the fact that we learned to turn a switch on and off. There's Eric that's numb and on the air, and then there's the Eric that turns it off that's there. But, you know, I I think I'm okay. For a long time though, I really struggled, and Christy, you may have covered this as well. Teresa Andrews, this woman from Ravenna, Ohio in 2000, who was murdered for her unborn child in the most horrific way possible by a neighbor who stalked her for weeks and pre-dug a hole to dump her body after she took the baby. And we're out there for two weeks on this missing woman and then the baby, and we get all these accolades when we're over, hey, great job reporting. My wife was pregnant at that time with our third child. So I was in full panic mode covering a murdered pregnant woman and then being next to my pregnant wife. And I just I couldn't let that go for the longest time. And those things stay with you after a while. But to answer your question, I feel like I'm in a good place, but I feel like it took some work to get here. And it feels it like like Christy said, we're afraid to leave the business because we know how hard it is to get into the business. And there were lots of people sending in their audition tapes that want my job. So I'm almost afraid to leave this job because first of all you start to doubt that you can do anything outside of television. And then you finally realize there is life outside of six and eleven and and and making that there. So but I I had to admit it to myself that I needed help. I had to get help and then I have to find some peace with it. So I know there are former journalists and and photographers and others that are not in that place now.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you? What do you think your relationship is with trauma
Kristy Steeves: gotten to a great place and I've I've I've been in this great place for quite a while and I think yeah having a creative outlet a professional creative outlet has really helped me you know, don't I don't know if it's one like I couldn't have not have segued from, you know, journalism to being a police officer or a nurse 'cause you're still experiencing trauma. You know, I was able to separate. but it's taken me years. And even, you know, today, I read a lot of self improvement books. you know, just trying to help me make it through life and cope and deal with, you know, whether it's childhood trauma, television trauma, you know, just trying to work to make a better version of myself. But I have to say for me, humor is a really, really big coping mechanism that helped me get through all of this.
Gretchen Hoak: Looking back now, with that big wide lens and and the perspective you have now, is there something or some way that you could have been taught some skills in journalism school that maybe would have helped better prepare you for, you know, the more traumatic aspects of the job,
Eric Mansfield: I think so. I think having former journalists as your instructors would be good. I felt like I was in a really good journalism undergrad program at the University of Dayton, but we really at that time didn't have former journalists who were there. Plus I was more focused on sports. But we're so drilled down into First Amendment, the five W's and the One H, you know, and the inverted pyramid that you are just drilled down to telling a condensed story. And TV is about condensing things. You literally have a minute fifteen or a minute twenty. So we're so focused on the the characteristics of the story and the constraints of the story that that's what we learned to do. And there wasn't a lot taught to us. So I think having former journalists would help if they can share those things. because I do think there's a lot of young journalists even today who go in with, yeah, yeah, I'll deal with that. Yeah, yeah, that'll just be part of the the job. but I wish I had known more about that when I agreed to stay on the news side of things.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: I think for me, and this is something that I would say working at the T V station is man, if I knew I had to work all the the holidays and the amount of hours
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha.
Kristy Steeves: and be out in a blizzard for ten hours straight, I wish they'd told us this in school because I don't know if I would have gotten this industry. you know, I probably would have 'cause, you know, I I call it you're you're young and dumb, right? you're invincible. I can go conquer the world. I can do this. But part of me was like, if I had known this, I w I work most of the holidays. And you on top of having that night shift, it was a very lonely existence. I don't have family, in this area. I, I moved to Cleveland for the job. And so I really s I I I really struggle. It wasn't just the job, but you know, dealing with the loneliness of having to work all these hours and you know, these shifts. You know, you think you're gonna work a day job. Well, it'd be nice to know you might be stuck on the weekends or the night shift. be prepared because y buy yourself, ooh, a good pair of boots and winter wear.
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah yes.
Kristy Steeves: I went one year and spent about a thousand dollars like on Gore-Tex winter wear and learned a layer. And the the videographers were like, damn you Christy, I could run rings around them because I'd be out there. I'm all warm now. you know, and I'm like, well go buy some better, you know, winter clothes. and they don't make great boots for women. I started wearing like
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: male army boots. with layers of socks and stuff, but you learn that over time. but it can be physically grueling as well. So it would have been nice knowing that going going into this industry.
Gretchen Hoak: to chuckle because mine were men's Columbia boots because they were the warmest ones. So yes, I had to go. You
Kristy Steeves: There you go.
Gretchen Hoak: needed the you needed the men's the men's version was gonna be the one that kept you warm. Yes. Absolutely.
Kristy Steeves: The men's boots are much better. Yes, women's boots are not. Eric, you look like you wanted to say something. he wears women's boots, just so you know, just to be different.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah. Well I remember being an inn sure, hey. If they if they got size twelve, I'm all in.
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha ha.
Eric Mansfield: The when I was an intern, I think the best advice I ever got was a guy who told me on air reporters said, Don't invest in good shoes. One,
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Right.
Eric Mansfield: they're you're not gonna see them on the air anyway. And B, you know, you might be walking through a fire, might be walking through fill you just you're gonna beat them up anyway. What don't invest in in nice shoes, invest in comfortable shoes. And like Christy said, you better have a wardrobe for everything in the car. He also said, any chance you get a chance to go to the restroom, do it. If you get a chance to sit down, do it. If you get a chance to eat, do it. Because at any minute, there's a SWAT standoff. And then you're standing there for nine hours and you can't do any of those three things. So that was good advice I learned as an intern.
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, women do not wear high heels. I did that for years. It no no no. I I had bought a brand new pair of black pumps and we were at a swat situation and the videographer and I got stuck on the wrong site. We literally had to climb chain link fence. I stopped wearing dresses after this too. Because try
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Climbing a chain link fence when you get to the top and you're straddling it and your dress is all the way up, to get over this and all the police are looking at you. But brand new pair of shoes completely shredded and destroyed, from this. so that's when I started learning, you know what, I'm wearing pants from now on. I c slacks, I can still look nice. but I I stopped wearing like the high heel shoes and I got smart.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, Eric and Christy, I've so enjoyed talking with you. And I have to tell you, I and this will either make you feel like really cool or really old. So I apologize if it's the if it's the latter, but I have to say we were talking about interns and advice. Eric, you won't remember this, but when I was a student journalist and Bob Dole visited Ashland University, I stood next to you on the media risers. And I
Eric Mansfield: wow.
Gretchen Hoak: remember you telling me about internships. And you were you were talking about make sure you get good internships, intern in a lot of different places, expose you, it exposes you to different different newsrooms. And Christy, I interned in your newsroom and I remember you there. And so when Eric had said we should talk to, you know, to Christy as well, I was like, I remember Christy Steves. I remember you. So at the very least, you can say I you had some impact on my my very young journalism career as I was coming up through through
Kristy Steeves: Gay.
Eric Mansfield: well that's great. I'm
Gretchen Hoak: college and entering the field.
Eric Mansfield: glad you shared that. I think we're all products of kinda who we learned from in the business and developing our own skills, but I'm glad those are good ex I remember that event because I got a chance I was a young reporter, I got to ask Bob Dole a question and he just turned to the crowd and got an answer rather than give me one. But it was a cool moment.
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha.
Eric Mansfield: But yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Can I need to share this thought that's popped into my head and it's a positive. Listening
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: to Eric during this podcast has made me realize it's almost like this was group therapy. because I used to think it was just me. I'm too sensitive, you know, I'm too compassionate. I'm too sensitive. Maybe I shouldn't be a news reporter. Nobody else is going through what I'm going through. Something's wrong with me. And then to, you know, hear that Eric actually struggled with the exact same things I did. We don't talk a lot in the news business, you know, about this. probably a lot of people just don't even talk about mental health or how we're not coping or struggling with what we're seeing and experiencing. And just to hear, Eric, that you've gone through almost identical feelings and emotions makes me feel so this is healing for me. right now, 17 years after I left the industry, to know Christy, you're a human being and other people feel this way too. Other you're you're not alone. We just didn't talk about it.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I would say the same and thanks to to you for sharing as well, 'cause there are times when I feel like I'm a unicorn. It's like nobody else, you know, has ex had this the same experience and there are others. And you know, I run into people Christy and I both went to a luncheon a few months ago with people that we used to work with and it's it's a unique kind of work family that, you know, only those of us who work the streets, as we would say, could really appreciate with each other. And it's There's a competitive spirit, but the reality is we we gotta pick each other up 'cause nobody else understands what we've been through.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, it's definitely one of the goals of of this show to be able to create a space for that conversation. And I really appreciate both of your willingness to come on and and share your thoughts candidly and and talk about your creative work and how, you know, your lives have been shaped by your experiences as journalists. So I really appreciate your willingness to come on today.
Eric Mansfield: Thanks for having us.
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, thank you. I enjoyed this. And it was great getting to see Eric again too.
Eric Mansfield: Always great to see you, my friend.
Gretchen Hoak: You've been listening to the Informed Reporting Podcast with me, Dr. Gretchen Hoak. If you liked what you heard today, please like and follow us on Spotify or Apple podcasts and feel free to leave us a positive review. To keep the conversation going and for more information and content between shows, Please follow us on Instagram @ informedreportingpodcast. Our music is Casual Fridays by 1000 Handz, used through a Creative Commons license from Free Music Archive. This podcast is produced independently of my teaching and research roles in the School of Media and Journalism at Kent State University. The information shared here reflects my views and those of my guests and is not reflective of the views or official policies of my institution. If you have any questions or ideas for guests or topics, please email us at informedreportingpodcast@gmail.com. ⁓
Eric Mansfield: Well I started out, you in high school newspaper and wanting to go into journalism like a lot of people like Grippin Akron. and then through college I wanted to do radio sports. That was what I thought was drawing me. I ended up in television news. So I I I tell people it's kind of the same church but a different pew. You know, it wasn't what I thought I was gonna do, but it's where the job was and it was very good. So I spent almost twenty years, most of it in the Cleveland market, covering general assignment news and my kids were growing and I had an opportunity to get out and eventually go into public relations. Now the person who talks to the media, also a natural transition for people. But you know, when you cover general assignment news, especially in Northeast Ohio, you can cover a sinkhole one day, you can cover LeBron James the next day. And and you just you never know what you're gonna cover. So it was a very exciting time and a tough time to process too when looking back.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: I got into journalism. I call I call it a fluke. I'm horrible at math. So I not I knew I could not go into any math-related fields. and I've always liked to write. And a high school teacher of mine, my senior year, encouraged me to get on the ne the school newspaper, and I loved it. And he also encouraged me, as did my father, to get into journalism. so that's what I did. fell in love with it. And like Eric was mentioning, to me it was like an adventure every day. You you drive into work and you have no idea what where your day's gonna take you. you know, depending on what assignment, you know, that you're given. And for me, that was one of the the thrills for me is, you know, I I always called it an adventure. we got to do things that other people don't get to see and experience. and and meet people. I'm a people person, always meeting new people, you know, through this industry.
Gretchen Hoak: Is that what kept you in it for so long? Two decades in in local news is nothing to to shake a stick at. Is that why you, kept coming back to it?
Kristy Steeves: For me, yes. there was a lot about it that I really enjoyed. there is a form of creativity. Yes, we have to kind of follow a standard journalistic rule in writing, who, what, when, where, how, and why. but for me, I you know, I I really enjoyed working with the videographers that are creative. So every day we really worked hard at trying to come up with new ways of telling a story that would engage the viewer. So that part I really enjoyed along with the teamwork, the camaraderie that I had at the TV station where I worked.
Eric Mansfield: it's addicting. The storytelling part is addicting. The adventure's addicting. I think when I knew that I had a really cool job was the station did a thing one time where they auctioned off be a television reporter for a day kind of thing. And people were actually paying to do what Christy and I get to do every day. So when when when you're a paid witness to history, it it's really very addicting that you get this adventure. And I think there's a lot of people that get into the media who find that as well and then they have a tough time coming out of it because they know there's very few other careers out there that would give that kind of adventure every day.
Gretchen Hoak: Early on in your career, Eric, did you notice that maybe things were tough? as fun as it is and and as addicting as that adventure and new thing every day can be, when do you feel looking back, you started to notice that some of those stories were starting to take a toll on you?
Eric Mansfield: Tell you, I was probably in the business about six months. And what I noticed were how beat down the people older than me were already. the evening news is 6 and 11, so you're not home at those hours, which means you're not with your family at those hours, and it's very difficult to keep your diet, to keep your exercise, to get good sleep, to have good family relationships. So I could start to see that even just slowly it takes its time. And then when you're the young reporter, they they send you to court, they send you to the murderer. they send you to a lot of these things that are out there. So I could see pretty quickly when I was young, you know, the first time you get to a murder and you're young and you're on the scene and it's real, it's really something. But then when you cover like four of them in five days, it's like I don't even know how to turn this off when I when I come to the weekend. So
Kristy Steeves: Mm-hmm.
Eric Mansfield: but to answer your question, probably about six months in, I started to see this is a lot different than the glamour you think it's gonna be.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, I well, when it really started to affect me, I I was I was struggling. the first couple of years it's new, it's exciting. but I worked the night and weekend shift for ten years. And I had Mondays and Tuesdays off. So I had no social life. I felt very lonely. you know, I was working weekend nights for ten years. so that was really hard. You never know what, you know, shift you're gonna end up. on but ten years took a toll and I was delighted when I got on the day shift. but I probably really started struggling after about ten years. It it it just really started weighing on me. And I just want to mention when Eric mentioned you know you can't your your nutrition eating, it's because we're always out in the field. So you don't have time to run we don't get to go to restaurants. I would bring a bag lunch with me every day you know to be able to eat. so unless you're going through a McDonalds drive thru, yeah, the nutrition's not very good.
Gretchen Hoak: Both of you mentioned in our conversations leading up to this an execution, witnessing an execution is being kind of a defining moment in terms of impact from your job. And I thought that that was really interesting that they were different executions, but both of you mentioned that experience as being kind of a particular turning point. Eric, can you talk a little bit about the execution you witnessed and how that affected you?
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, mine was in two thousand seven and because I was generally the Akron reporter and this was an Akron murder, it was kind of my turn. You know, they with each execution that comes up, they look to the local markets, and usually there's somebody from T V, somebody from radio, somebody from newspaper. And this it was just kind of my turn to go and to do those things. Mine went very much like clockwork. I know it's in the national discussion right again. But the the guy who had done this who had killed these two teenage girls was not remorseful. He got up on the table and cursed at us. There were very few people in the gallery. He laid down. They did the injection. It looked like he went to sleep. They announced that he was dead. But it was still so clinical. It was so callous. It was so rehearsed. I remember what one of the things that really stuck out to me was the hearse driver was already there with the vehicle two hours before this was even going to take place. And I'm like, what kind of job does that guy have? That he's a later going to remove a body of somebody that right now is in eating breakfast. So you know you can't help but take all those things in. I focused on the professionalism of I've got to come out and report exactly what I saw. But then I had to process it for a while. And I know we'll talk about the creative outlets, but that one stayed with me for a while, even though it went well and the person was remorseful. There was no doubt of his guilt or innocence. I think if you were to cover one where somebody still said they were innocent, that would really stay with you after a while. And then just to wrap up, I remember there were people like at the outside the prison who were like praying for us because we had to witness it. And were really very engaged. And I'm I'm anti-death penalty, but I was there for my job and I I felt like it educated me. But yeah, it it stayed with me to watch
Kristy Steeves: Mm.
Eric Mansfield: a guy walk in and then watch his dead body be let out. You don't forget that.
Gretchen Hoak: That was gonna be my question was what part of it do you think it was that really stuck with you and and just I can see where witnessing seeing someone alive and then seeing them die that's not something everyone sees.
Eric Mansfield: Well, it you know, we elect the governor and you know, we elect the legislature and they pass the laws, so in essence we Ohioans voted for this in our state and it gets carried out in our state, whether it's in our name or not. And it just i it was heartbreaking. And I I just know I've had a murder in my own family that you know, th this kind of thing doesn't bring that person back. So for these two girls and their families, I remember there were a few representatives there. We did traditional interviews with what do you think of this? But you c you can't help but think, I got paid to watch someone be put to death. That is not a usual thing that happens in people's jobs.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about your experience? Your execution that you witnessed was a different one from the one that Eric did.
Kristy Steeves: Right. the execution it was Wilford Barry Jr. and he was executed in nineteen ninety nine. not sure if they did it different than when Eric did his, but they did it by lottery. So all e everybody's names I guess got put it put into this lottery and mine got pulled. and I was asked, you know, do you wanna do this? Are you okay doing this? And I went, Yeah. I felt I was the perfect person because I don't have a stand. I'm not for it, I wasn't against it. You know, as a journalist could be neutral. and I also thought I've seen so much I'm just gonna say blood, guts, death, and gore. I had the police beat. so every day I was covering crime, and I thought I've seen it, I can handle this, and it turns out I I did not handle it at all well. it threw me for a loop. this was the first execution in Ohio since nineteen sixty three. They had banned it and then reinstituted it. so there was national media there and I was picked as a a pool reporter. So out of the five journalists that witnessed this execution, three of us I wasn't even working for my T V station per se. I had to work for everybody. So we had to walk out and talk about what we witnessed. So other people could take notes and report on it. And it was very surreal for me. But what my take on this is I feel it was a botched execution. They had been practicing and this is where I spiral down. you know, we get led into the death chamber. His family was in the room next to us and you could hear them crying. They did not want him to be executed. He was called the volunteer. He did not want to spend the rest of his life in prison. So he wanted to be put to death. And that's another reason why I thought I'd be okay with this. He's gonna go to sleep like you do in surgery. He's not gonna feel anything and he's okay with this. but during the procedure, he had a conversation with the warden. We can't hear because there's a g glass between us and you know, the room that He and the warden were in. They they had some conversation. And then the next thing I know, he started gasping for his eyes were open. He started gasping for air and his chest was heaving. And I freaked watching this, like he's suffering. And I know some people might say, you know, he's a convicted killer, but still he's a human being. And to stand there and watch this suffering, I mean, put me into a spiral. and then I went in I've never had a panic attack before or after, but I think I went into full-blown panic attack because when we were, you know, led out of the death chamber to go talk to everybody, I would have I needed about 20 minutes to process this. I I was near tears. I was really upset and and I also felt like I was part of the process. The fact the fact that I was standing there witnessing this, that I was making this okay. so I was struggling with those emotions too, my own personal emotions. But I had this fear that in our industry we have to be stoic. You know, don't show emotion, you don't take sides, and I'm really struggling holding my emo my emotions intact. And I grabbed there were two women, three men, and the woman was with the radio station, and I grabbed her arm and I said, Don't make me go first, don't make me talk first. I I'm about to lose it. And she said, okay, we'll go first. but I think part of why I spiraled into a panic attack is I know the media, having worked in it, I'm thinking, I don't want to end up being the news story. I get up there and I pass out, right? I can't talk. I'm hyperventilating. reporter can't handle, you know, this, or it must have been really bad. You know, I just and I could not control what was going on in my body. long story short, I did get up and speak. but my voice was quivering and I and I just I have to say this because I know you're going to segue into this other topic. But when it was over, I just thought I just embarrassed myself. I just embarrassed my employer. because I I couldn't get a grip on my emotions. And a couple days later got a call from a newspaper in Ohio h wanting to do a story on what I had gone through. Because everybody saw that I was struggling. And and it was about the things that journalists go through and that we don't have safety nets like some professions, like you know, the police department, fire department. They get three days paid leave, you know, if it's a traumatic event. they also go through group counseling. I found this out a week later, a fire chief I was interviewing, and he goes, You're the one that witnessed that execution. I said, Yeah. And he goes, How you doing? And I said, I'm not, I'm not doing good. I had nightmares every night, every night, and this whole thing was looping through my head. E I mean, just over and over and over. And I told him that. He said, I can get you into group counseling. And he explained, you know, if you can get some of the other journalists, you're probably gonna find out you're not alone. And the radio reporter went with me, she was experiencing the same thing. And we went to group therapy, but the the re the newspaper reporter commented that we don't have anything in place to help us. And I took the article to human resources and gave it to them. And the T V station that I work for actually instituted counseling, making that available for the reporters at the T V station where I worked. So it was very traumatic for me.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I just wanted to add that just to paint some context, and I'm it was probably the same, Christy, we're only like fifteen feet away from the table. There is a piece of plexiglass, but you're sitting there in this little gallery of like twenty chairs and nobody's really allowed to speak. So you're close enough where can like feel the people moving around and and their breath and things. It's not like you're watching a TV monitor. You are there. and and so you you can't help but take that in, just the gallows of it. It's dark, it's this room that was there. and you know, secondly was how quickly we get asked to go right back to our jobs. I mean, this was in the Lucasville, I assume it was the Lucasville for you too, Christy.
Kristy Steeves: Yes.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, Lucasville. So we're all the way in southern Ohio, and we get up the next morning and after my morning live shots, they're like, hey, can you s on the way back to Cleveland, can you stop in Columbus and pick up an interview at the State House and do this and do that? It's like it's like my own employer, maybe not intentionally. Just didn't recognize that I'd been through something like this at all. I think the one thing that benefited us in our day in TV is that we were always in teams, or typically so at least I had a photographer. I had somebody in the car I could vent to. There are young journalists now who their whole day is by themselves. And when they end up in a crisis, it has got to be much more difficult on them.
Gretchen Hoak: It's interesting that you mentioned Christy because my one of my questions was, what was the culture around mental health in journalism at the time when you guys were reporting? And it's interesting to me, Christy, that the first thought in your head was, no, I don't want people to know I couldn't handle this as though that wouldn't be a normal human acceptable thing. And I I think that's that probably tells more about what the culture was around sort of mental health and journalism at the time than than anything else.
Kristy Steeves: To seek out counseling on my own. And I I knew I needed help. this stuck with me a year and a half later. Every night I was having horrendous, horrendous like nightmare dreams to the point where I was afraid to sleep. I was maybe getting four hours of sleep a night. And after a year and a half of this, I thought, I'm in trouble, I need help. So I reached out and I was actually sent to a psychiatrist. And I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. and but through the counseling, I realized it wasn't just that event, it was years of pent-up witnessing brutality and death. and then that to me was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, you know, for me, and my system just couldn't handle it anymore. And the counseling did help. me process and and work through that. but yeah, I I don't think you know, the the the industry understands what I'm gonna call us foot soldiers. Eric and I are foot soldiers, the videographers are foot soldiers. We're going out into the battlefields every day. Some sometimes it really felt like that. but I don't think the industry, the managers, understand what we go through as human beings out in the field. So I don't think they know any better.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I like that.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, I think it was really interesting too that you said that they were like, Hey, on the way back, pick up an interview. I think that's also very telling of of just a complete n lack of understanding of what something like an execution, what witnessing that could could have done.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, th there are those of us in the field that actually see it and then there's those that just catch what we get. They're they're in the restaurant, they never go out and hunt for the food and so they don't know what that's like. And I think there was a short lived movement after nine eleven to try to prev you know have some mental health available and then I think it just faded away. I had because I was also in the National Guard, I had gone to Iraq in O three and four. So I had been through a different type of PTSD and I think I was still riding some of that at the time. in two thousand seven when I saw the execution that's there. But I don't think it was intentional, but I'm almost surprised they don't have journalists sign a waiver anymore because if you never know what you're gonna see. I mean can think of a million examples, I'm sure Christie can too, but two stand out to me. One was I came in for a normal daytime shift and I had a daytime fluff story and at eleven AM they called and said, something's happening at the power plant. Run over there, we're sending a live truck at noon. I get over there, there's a kid about nine years old who climbed the fence and had gotten shocked. And he's screaming in pain. And I have to listen to this while I'm setting up for a live shot and then do a live shot and yes, a nine-year-old boy climbed the fence, they're rushing him to the hospital. And then they got my ear saying, okay, thanks, go back to your other story. Like I'm just supposed to turn it off or something. And then the the last moment that I had was in 2012. I responded to Shardin High School here in Northeast Ohio for a school shooting. And I cried on the air. the kids who had been shot and killed were the same age as my sons, who were teenagers. I had just said goodbye to them to go to school and got sent to a school. And as the information's coming out, I just I teared up on the air and I didn't want like Christy, I didn't want to do that in front of people. And but it happened and I'm like, you know what, this is this is too many years and too many things and I I can't I can't sleep and I gotta be able to deal with this.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, you found playwriting as an outlet for your, you know, sort of your trauma and processing all the things that you had seen, you know, on the job. What was it about something like playwriting that that drew you to it and and made it helpful to you?
Eric Mansfield: I think the - the thing is like when you tell people what you do, they're fascinated, but they really don't understand what you've been through. And it's like, I feel like I need to tell some of these things, but I don't know how I can explain it to somebody of what it's like. So I've with the execution I wrote a play called Witnesses to the Execution. It's about journalists sitting around and having dinner after witnessing an execution and debating what they just saw. The play's been picked up, it's run in New York. I've been very happy with it. I wrote a a play called Baron of Brown Street, a full length play. about a homeless guy from Akron who was intentionally set on fire and lived to tell about it and forgave the attackers. It's this incredible moment of forgiveness. I I had to get that story out and that play went on to win national awards at the Kennedy Center. So that there's something from my journalism experience in just about every story. I've got a play that's opening here in November about a military couple and there's a moment in there where a military spouse is screaming at the door, go away, go away, go away, because she knows what news is on the other side of the door. That comes from a real experience of interviewing a military spouse, actually a military mom who saw the men in uniform show up in the driveway. And I feel like that's helping me to get some of those stories out by working them into my plays. So I I feel like for myself I gotta tell these stories and it's a way that worked for me.
Gretchen Hoak: Do think it's in the the writing, writing is is often seen as cathartic. So do you feel as though that process of being able to craft that story and write it also helps?
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, it it does. And you know what? I cry when I'm writing these sometimes because those the the emotions are so vivid that you just have to do this. One of the last stories I covered was a a ba a baby left in a hot car. And I got to the scene, the paramedics are leaving the scene. This was just as they're starting to shift a one man cruise. So I'm having to shoot the video myself. So I shoot the ambulance pulling away, everybody leaves for the hospital. I'm getting a few extra shots in the street and a car flies up there and it's the mother of this baby. She had left the baby with a babysitter who left it in the car. And she collapses in the street and in screen, and I'm shooting this going, what am I doing? How am I standing here filming this woman's the worst moment of her life? And people just don't understand that even if you don't show that in the news, Christy and I witness it. And it just it stays with you. So for me, the plays became a part where I can work some of those stories in. And it it does help me process that those things really happen.
Gretchen Hoak: Had you ever done any writing before? You know, I think it's such an interesting and unique hobby to turn to. had you ever done any writing before that sort of led you in the direction of plays
Eric Mansfield: Well, we're just we're natural storytellers, which is what draws us to this crazy business. So even when I left T V I was still telling stories just for an employer in a different way. And my kids were in theater and I felt like what I was watching that maybe I could write things because working in television, you write words that are meant to be spoken aloud. So I felt like I had to step up getting to playwriting because I already understand what conversational English sounds like. And I just kind of found a niche for it. And now I've had, you know, plays produced all over the world. I've been very, very very fortunate to have my work picked up, but people don't always understand that it's not just fiction that came up in my head. A lot of times it's been sparked by these real experiences. So I've been fortunate that it does give me that creative outlet. But it is cathartic. And there are times when I'm reading all the characters, my wife thinks I'm nuts walking around the house reading all these voices and I'll break into tears and then I'll know I've I think I've captured it the way I should.
Gretchen Hoak: I did forget to ask this before we started talking about the plays, when you did ultimately leave TV, was it the experience with having seen all these things? Was that kind of a motivator to decide that it was time to switch?
Eric Mansfield: It was because I also my kids were growing and I just wasn't seeing them enough and I could see where the business was going and I just I don't need four murders in five days anymore. I d I just there's too many to count. There's too many times. I mean, there's a incredible energy, even just being in court and watching someone found guilty and realizing they're going off to prison and I might run to Wendy's for lunch here in a minute. And it's like you just you can't process those things. And I also knew that the business was shifting to me being by myself a lot. And I did I didn't like that. You don't feel safe like that in the field. And I'm a big guy. I'm 6'2. People leave me alone. But I still you don't feel safe. But I have nobody to process with. You can't come home to your spouse and say, guess what I did today? You know, I interviewed some parents whose kids drowned. You know, you just you don't turn that off and then just sit there with your own kids and have dinner and ask them about their days. But you also don't know how to if you don't let it out, it just eats at you. And it's like, you know, it's it's time. In fact, looking back, I wish I had left five years earlier. Because it does take its toll on.
Gretchen Hoak: You mentioned earlier
Eric Mansfield: And it's hard.
Gretchen Hoak: that you had had that Christy that you developed PTSD. Can was that part of your decision to ultimately leave news? and why did you feel that that was that leaving
Eric Mansfield: Mm-hmm.
Gretchen Hoak: was really the best thing for you?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, well I had actually I called it my exit plan. My husband and I refinanced our house. I I knew it was time to go and Eric, you know, like you, I wish I should have left two years earlier. but I had started making plans to leave. and then I just I kept hanging in there because it was the fear of leaving this job that I truly loved. And it was my identity as well. because you live this job. you're talking twelve, fourteen hour work days. You lived this job. It was a part of who I was, and there was this fear of leaving. So, I should have left earlier, but I kept hanging in there, hanging in there. And like Eric, I I kind of there was a defining moment for me where there was a a story, that just ate at my soul, I was assigned to it and I really didn't wanna do this. Having the police beat, I cultivated a lot of sources. I knew police officers, judges, prosecutors, sheriff's deputies, FBI agents. And you get to know these people. And I'm trying to be careful what I say. I For the sake of this person, but there's a police chief who got caught doing something. And I knew him. I had his cell phone number. I could call him on the weekends if we needed help with the story. because I had developed I wouldn't call a relationship with him like many others. And I was assigned to the story. And I really didn't want to do it. And I I actually called him and I said, I just need you to know I've been assigned to the story. and I'm gonna be as fair, you know, I'm gonna be fair. I have to report it. I feel bad for what you're going through. Do you have any comments? And he said, I didn't do it. And he goes, That's all I'll say and I said, Okay. But it just ate at me, and then I had just covered too a house fire where four children were killed. And you know, I was told you've got to get the parents to talk to you. Yep. And it's not like we wanna do this, but we're told by our boss, you and I'm you know, the the Parents they must have been off at work 'cause it was during the day and the kids perished. And I have to go show up at the house two houses down, knock on the door to ask for an interview. And it just ate at my soul. And I think these two events just kind of was like, I broke. I I I can't I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I broke.
Eric Mansfield: Well and and not only are we pushed to that, we're judged by that. Because if our competitor at TV station number three or T shoot station number four did get the interview or just got there ahead of us, suddenly they're like, What are you doing out there? And it's like, do you know what it's like to knock on that door? And and you never know what you're gonna what you're gonna find.
Kristy Steeves: And I think that was a lot of stress from the job. and I'm I'm sure Eric will concur. A lot of the stress just came from not only minute by minute deadlines, but you've got to get this interview. You've got to get it. And then if we don't, we get called on the carpet. You know, and thinking, Am I gonna get fired? you know, can I think so it was a it it it is a very stressful industry, not just dealing with the things that we saw witnessed, but also, you know, the daily stressors from management as well.
Eric Mansfield: We had one, Christy, you might have been there too. We were in Shreve, which is in Wayne County here. A car of kids got hit by a train, and six kids died, and one kid lived. And my station was all over me to make sure I went to all six family homes to try to get all and I'm like, Do you do you have any idea what you're asking here? You know, you want me to go to all of these grieving teens. Well, we've got to we've got to do our duty. What's this we stuff? It's me out here in the field with a photographer going to six. different homes and then trying to process that and maybe one of them talked to us or something like that and we did our story but then we were judged against how we did with the others. And when you come in the next day, nobody asks how you're doing. They're just like what story you got for us today. It's it's you're appreciated, but it's it's very short lived.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, in much the same way that Eric turned to playwriting, you have become once you left television, you've become quite an accomplished photographer. Can you talk a little bit about what led you to photography and how that became sort of your, you know, thing that that really helped you process your trauma?
Kristy Steeves: Well, it actually goes back to my college days when I was studying journalism. I went to Indiana University and we had to take a radio class, newspaper class, photojournalism and then television to try it all out to see where you wanna go in life. And I absolutely fell in love with photojournalism. And I remember it was my junior year when I took this class and my senior year I took another photojournalism class and I remember thinking, this is really what I want to do. But I thought I can't start a career with two classes. So, you know, I was already immersed in the television route. but there you're still doing pictures, you know, like photogra still photography. And it's the marriage of writing and visuals. And that's what really appealed to me. So I you know, I progress through working in television and I always had a camera. everywhere I went, I was actually photographing weddings and the last couple of years there, and I did have my boss's permission, I started professionally photographing weddings on the weekends. Thinking, this makes me so much happier. I've got some joy in my life. Weddings are happy events. And that actually probably helped me get through things a little bit longer and staying in television because I was doing something to focus on that brought me joy and brought other people joy as well. but when I left, I knew that's the route that I wanted to take. And my thought too when I left the TV in station was. I think you need to pursue this. Don't live life with regrets. You need to give this a try. And I have to say it's the happiest I've ever been in my life is doing photography. I jumped in it both I mean, jumped with both feet. I spent the first seven years, seven days a week, studying, taking education, to try to get to I wanted to Learn as it's not pushing a button. to do professional photography. I ha I say it's it's harder than being a journalist. the things that you have to know and learn to be good at it. And so I I I I excelled at it. I feel like that's my calling in life. But it also brought me great joy because I'm photographing people and I'm making them, you know, understanding posing, how to make a person flatter their body, lighting, you sculpt their face and their body. You can make them look really good. And I loved it when people would cry out of joy, like, my gosh. They're seeing themselves in a totally different way. And I'm helping people see the beauty in themselves, inside and out. And that's where it just brought me a lot of joy that kind of compensated.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, a lot of your creative photography work focuses on humor. And when we talked before, you mentioned that that there is a purpose in that, that sort of focusing on the joy and the humor in that creative work. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, it's it's it's wild 'cause I didn't know this at the time. but like Eric, I ended up writing, and it helped me process. And it probably wasn't until about five or six years ago, that I realized that humor is a coping mechanism for me. you know, trying to stay positive versus dwelling on the negative. So I'm kind of like the class clown. I joke around. I love to make other people laugh, but and it makes me laugh. So I'm very silly and goofy. because it brings humor, laughter, and it is kind of countering the negativity and the PTSD and everything. You know, I don't know if I'll ever you know be completely over. my days working as a journalist, that stuff sticks with you for life. just the the memories and watching all the sadness. There's joy too. you know, every now and then I got to do a nice story, you know, that you know, a positive story, but it was far and few in between. but humor seems to help me cope. I know I've I've seen other photographers with their creative endeavors, they heal themselves through actually facing their pain. And, it's very dark, sad, moody work. and for some reason I don't go there. I I I try to focus on the happiness. I call it keeping my head above water so I don't sink down. I suffered a depression and I'll just put this out there. I ended up one of the reasons well, the main reason I left was I had a nervous breakdown. And it came to me just like that. I'd come home, sat at the table, and instead of crying this time, I was just in a daze, just staring into nothingness. My husband walked in, I heard the door open, and as I turned to him, I literally felt this gravity pushing my body down into the ground. I became so heavy, and I had not acknowledged this. I didn't even know what I was going through. And I turned to him and I said, I am so depressed. And I I l I broke. I started crying hysterically. I couldn't stop. My eyes were swelling like shut, middle of the night. Called my boss and I said, I'm having a nervous breakdown. I won't be at work tomorrow and I never went back. I had to go see five days later, I was still crying, I couldn't eat, I was becoming sick. this was severe. that I went to the hospital and then went to counseling and and the doctor said to me, he kind of put it in his perspective, you're this is not like a light switch. You can turn on and off. He goes, the state that you're in, you've been depressed for years. And looking back later, I was actually able to pinpoint the time frame when I started going down. and I I hung in there for another eight years. So I dealt with a sinking depression for about eight years. And I'd gotten to the point every day I'd get my car to go to work and I would even tell myself, numb out. emotionally numb out so you can get through this day. Because it had taken such a toll on me emotionally and mentally and physically that that was the only way I could survive and maybe that's why I ended up with a nervous breakdown because again that PTSD, you're stuffing and stuffing and stuffing, just numbing out to get through that day. And it hit me hard. It took me over a year to work my way out of a severe depression. But once I was able to I told myself, you gotta get out of this. And when you're depressed that bad, y you don't even want to do anything. And I forced myself to I went to the career center and took a Photoshop class. you know, with the thought of we need to start focusing on the photography. And I slowly pulled myself out of that by focusing on the photography and the creative outlet. And that really helped me recover.
Gretchen Hoak: Eric, what do you think your relationship with is, with trauma is today? Are is it something that you still find creeps up with you, or do you feel as though you've through your creative work kind of been able to to really, I guess, expel a lot of that?
Eric Mansfield: Well, I've I've done a lot of work and and Christy, humor becomes one of those things that we use as a defense mechanism and sometimes we're triggered by things we see that take us back to stories and things like that that stay with us and we can't really talk about it 'cause you can't really explain to the people that you're with. I I've done work with a counselor since I came home from Iraq and I think it all kind of came out together. So I I feel like I'm in a good place there that when you're a paid witness to history, sometimes that history is history that stays with you and Christy kinda hit on the fact that we learned to turn a switch on and off. There's Eric that's numb and on the air, and then there's the Eric that turns it off that's there. But, you know, I I think I'm okay. For a long time though, I really struggled, and Christy, you may have covered this as well. Teresa Andrews, this woman from Ravenna, Ohio in 2000, who was murdered for her unborn child in the most horrific way possible by a neighbor who stalked her for weeks and pre-dug a hole to dump her body after she took the baby. And we're out there for two weeks on this missing woman and then the baby, and we get all these accolades when we're over, hey, great job reporting. My wife was pregnant at that time with our third child. So I was in full panic mode covering a murdered pregnant woman and then being next to my pregnant wife. And I just I couldn't let that go for the longest time. And those things stay with you after a while. But to answer your question, I feel like I'm in a good place, but I feel like it took some work to get here. And it feels it like like Christy said, we're afraid to leave the business because we know how hard it is to get into the business. And there were lots of people sending in their audition tapes that want my job. So I'm almost afraid to leave this job because first of all you start to doubt that you can do anything outside of television. And then you finally realize there is life outside of six and eleven and and and making that there. So but I I had to admit it to myself that I needed help. I had to get help and then I have to find some peace with it. So I know there are former journalists and and photographers and others that are not in that place now.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you? What do you think your relationship is with trauma
Kristy Steeves: gotten to a great place and I've I've I've been in this great place for quite a while and I think yeah having a creative outlet a professional creative outlet has really helped me you know, don't I don't know if it's one like I couldn't have not have segued from, you know, journalism to being a police officer or a nurse 'cause you're still experiencing trauma. You know, I was able to separate. but it's taken me years. And even, you know, today, I read a lot of self improvement books. you know, just trying to help me make it through life and cope and deal with, you know, whether it's childhood trauma, television trauma, you know, just trying to work to make a better version of myself. But I have to say for me, humor is a really, really big coping mechanism that helped me get through all of this.
Gretchen Hoak: Looking back now, with that big wide lens and and the perspective you have now, is there something or some way that you could have been taught some skills in journalism school that maybe would have helped better prepare you for, you know, the more traumatic aspects of the job,
Eric Mansfield: I think so. I think having former journalists as your instructors would be good. I felt like I was in a really good journalism undergrad program at the University of Dayton, but we really at that time didn't have former journalists who were there. Plus I was more focused on sports. But we're so drilled down into First Amendment, the five W's and the One H, you know, and the inverted pyramid that you are just drilled down to telling a condensed story. And TV is about condensing things. You literally have a minute fifteen or a minute twenty. So we're so focused on the the characteristics of the story and the constraints of the story that that's what we learned to do. And there wasn't a lot taught to us. So I think having former journalists would help if they can share those things. because I do think there's a lot of young journalists even today who go in with, yeah, yeah, I'll deal with that. Yeah, yeah, that'll just be part of the the job. but I wish I had known more about that when I agreed to stay on the news side of things.
Gretchen Hoak: Christy, how about you?
Kristy Steeves: I think for me, and this is something that I would say working at the T V station is man, if I knew I had to work all the the holidays and the amount of hours
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha.
Kristy Steeves: and be out in a blizzard for ten hours straight, I wish they'd told us this in school because I don't know if I would have gotten this industry. you know, I probably would have 'cause, you know, I I call it you're you're young and dumb, right? you're invincible. I can go conquer the world. I can do this. But part of me was like, if I had known this, I w I work most of the holidays. And you on top of having that night shift, it was a very lonely existence. I don't have family, in this area. I, I moved to Cleveland for the job. And so I really s I I I really struggle. It wasn't just the job, but you know, dealing with the loneliness of having to work all these hours and you know, these shifts. You know, you think you're gonna work a day job. Well, it'd be nice to know you might be stuck on the weekends or the night shift. be prepared because y buy yourself, ooh, a good pair of boots and winter wear.
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah yes.
Kristy Steeves: I went one year and spent about a thousand dollars like on Gore-Tex winter wear and learned a layer. And the the videographers were like, damn you Christy, I could run rings around them because I'd be out there. I'm all warm now. you know, and I'm like, well go buy some better, you know, winter clothes. and they don't make great boots for women. I started wearing like
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: male army boots. with layers of socks and stuff, but you learn that over time. but it can be physically grueling as well. So it would have been nice knowing that going going into this industry.
Gretchen Hoak: to chuckle because mine were men's Columbia boots because they were the warmest ones. So yes, I had to go. You
Kristy Steeves: There you go.
Gretchen Hoak: needed the you needed the men's the men's version was gonna be the one that kept you warm. Yes. Absolutely.
Kristy Steeves: The men's boots are much better. Yes, women's boots are not. Eric, you look like you wanted to say something. he wears women's boots, just so you know, just to be different.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah. Well I remember being an inn sure, hey. If they if they got size twelve, I'm all in.
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha ha.
Eric Mansfield: The when I was an intern, I think the best advice I ever got was a guy who told me on air reporters said, Don't invest in good shoes. One,
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Right.
Eric Mansfield: they're you're not gonna see them on the air anyway. And B, you know, you might be walking through a fire, might be walking through fill you just you're gonna beat them up anyway. What don't invest in in nice shoes, invest in comfortable shoes. And like Christy said, you better have a wardrobe for everything in the car. He also said, any chance you get a chance to go to the restroom, do it. If you get a chance to sit down, do it. If you get a chance to eat, do it. Because at any minute, there's a SWAT standoff. And then you're standing there for nine hours and you can't do any of those three things. So that was good advice I learned as an intern.
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, women do not wear high heels. I did that for years. It no no no. I I had bought a brand new pair of black pumps and we were at a swat situation and the videographer and I got stuck on the wrong site. We literally had to climb chain link fence. I stopped wearing dresses after this too. Because try
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Climbing a chain link fence when you get to the top and you're straddling it and your dress is all the way up, to get over this and all the police are looking at you. But brand new pair of shoes completely shredded and destroyed, from this. so that's when I started learning, you know what, I'm wearing pants from now on. I c slacks, I can still look nice. but I I stopped wearing like the high heel shoes and I got smart.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, Eric and Christy, I've so enjoyed talking with you. And I have to tell you, I and this will either make you feel like really cool or really old. So I apologize if it's the if it's the latter, but I have to say we were talking about interns and advice. Eric, you won't remember this, but when I was a student journalist and Bob Dole visited Ashland University, I stood next to you on the media risers. And I
Eric Mansfield: wow.
Gretchen Hoak: remember you telling me about internships. And you were you were talking about make sure you get good internships, intern in a lot of different places, expose you, it exposes you to different different newsrooms. And Christy, I interned in your newsroom and I remember you there. And so when Eric had said we should talk to, you know, to Christy as well, I was like, I remember Christy Steves. I remember you. So at the very least, you can say I you had some impact on my my very young journalism career as I was coming up through through
Kristy Steeves: Gay.
Eric Mansfield: well that's great. I'm
Gretchen Hoak: college and entering the field.
Eric Mansfield: glad you shared that. I think we're all products of kinda who we learned from in the business and developing our own skills, but I'm glad those are good ex I remember that event because I got a chance I was a young reporter, I got to ask Bob Dole a question and he just turned to the crowd and got an answer rather than give me one. But it was a cool moment.
Gretchen Hoak: Ha ha.
Eric Mansfield: But yeah.
Kristy Steeves: Can I need to share this thought that's popped into my head and it's a positive. Listening
Gretchen Hoak: Yeah.
Kristy Steeves: to Eric during this podcast has made me realize it's almost like this was group therapy. because I used to think it was just me. I'm too sensitive, you know, I'm too compassionate. I'm too sensitive. Maybe I shouldn't be a news reporter. Nobody else is going through what I'm going through. Something's wrong with me. And then to, you know, hear that Eric actually struggled with the exact same things I did. We don't talk a lot in the news business, you know, about this. probably a lot of people just don't even talk about mental health or how we're not coping or struggling with what we're seeing and experiencing. And just to hear, Eric, that you've gone through almost identical feelings and emotions makes me feel so this is healing for me. right now, 17 years after I left the industry, to know Christy, you're a human being and other people feel this way too. Other you're you're not alone. We just didn't talk about it.
Eric Mansfield: Yeah, I would say the same and thanks to to you for sharing as well, 'cause there are times when I feel like I'm a unicorn. It's like nobody else, you know, has ex had this the same experience and there are others. And you know, I run into people Christy and I both went to a luncheon a few months ago with people that we used to work with and it's it's a unique kind of work family that, you know, only those of us who work the streets, as we would say, could really appreciate with each other. And it's There's a competitive spirit, but the reality is we we gotta pick each other up 'cause nobody else understands what we've been through.
Gretchen Hoak: Well, it's definitely one of the goals of of this show to be able to create a space for that conversation. And I really appreciate both of your willingness to come on and and share your thoughts candidly and and talk about your creative work and how, you know, your lives have been shaped by your experiences as journalists. So I really appreciate your willingness to come on today.
Eric Mansfield: Thanks for having us.
Kristy Steeves: Yeah, thank you. I enjoyed this. And it was great getting to see Eric again too.
Eric Mansfield: Always great to see you, my friend.
Gretchen Hoak: You've been listening to the Informed Reporting Podcast with me, Dr. Gretchen Hoak. If you liked what you heard today, please like and follow us on Spotify or Apple podcasts and feel free to leave us a positive review. To keep the conversation going and for more information and content between shows, Please follow us on Instagram @ informedreportingpodcast. Our music is Casual Fridays by 1000 Handz, used through a Creative Commons license from Free Music Archive. This podcast is produced independently of my teaching and research roles in the School of Media and Journalism at Kent State University. The information shared here reflects my views and those of my guests and is not reflective of the views or official policies of my institution. If you have any questions or ideas for guests or topics, please email us at informedreportingpodcast@gmail.com. ⁓
