Erika Mahoney, a 2012 graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, has used her journalism background to create a podcast called “Senseless.” The project was inspired by personal tragedy after her father was killed in the 2021 mass shooting at King Soopers in Colorado.
“The day my dad died, part of me died too including my identity,” Mahoney said.
After the shooting, Mahoney found herself in an unexpected position as she became the subject of news coverage rather than reporting on it. She received many interview requests and felt conflicted about responding.
“I was honestly torn on whether I should speak out or not,” she said. “I had spent a decade asking people to share their hard stories with me. Ultimately, I said yes to doing interviews because I wanted to show the world that my dad was a human being who shouldn’t have had to run for his life in a grocery store parking lot.”
Her initial goal to honor her father’s memory grew into something larger as she began seeking answers about trauma and grief. Four years later, Mahoney launched “Senseless,” which explores not only her own story but also the broader impacts of mass violence.
“I’m really asking people to walk with me from the day of the shooting through the trial and the years in between when I’m grappling with grief and trauma,” Mahoney explained.
In one episode, Mahoney tells how two survivors—Logan, who helped others escape during the attack, and Olivia, who lost her mother—found each other while coping with their experiences and eventually formed a relationship.
“So often we talk about the hard parts of grief and it’s so hard, but there are also some beautiful things to come out of it,” she said.
Mahoney credits her training at Newhouse for providing skills that shaped her work as a reporter and now as a podcaster. She noted that lessons from professors still influence her approach today.
“Newhouse has been fundamental in my career as a TV reporter, a radio reporter and now as a podcaster,” she said. “I still have professors’ comments in the back of my head. They’re still there.”
She acknowledged that producing such personal content means giving up journalistic objectivity: “It would be disingenuous to pretend that it didn’t happen to me.”
Transitioning from daily news reporting to long-form podcasting allowed Mahoney to explore topics more deeply than before. She described this process as transformative.
“What I hope people take away is that we can get on the other side of these hard, hard things,” Mahoney said. “That we can find joy again.”
Mahoney expressed pride in both her podcast and herself for persevering after loss: “I would give it all back to have my dad back,” she said. “But I’ve learned to slow down, live boldly, raise my voice. I think life is so much shorter than we really think it is.”
A recent episode featuring Mahoney is available on ’Cuse Conversations along with its transcript.
