I’m Mary Steffenhagen: a journalist, audio producer, and fact-checker currently based in New York.

I most recently produced The Devil You Know, a 16-episode limited series podcast about the Satanic Panic for host Sarah Marshall and the CBC (premiering October 20, 2025).

As a producer for WNYC’s daily radio show, The Takeaway (RIP!), I produced daily news segments on everything, from the expected (like tech disinformation, criminal justice, religious abuse coverups, and white nationalism) to the unexpected (like Broadway’s obsession with drag, exotic dancers unionizing, human composting, and trains!).

My reporting on labor organizing, local politics, and social activism has been published by outlets including Teen Vogue, City Limits, and WBAI.

Once labeled a “discoverer of most obscure but deeply relevant facts” by a former boss, I’ve put those skills to use as a disinformation researcher for NewsGuard and a fact-checker for the limited series podcast Ghost Church, hosted by Jamie Loftus. I previously interned at Salon and Coda Media, where I helped produce a weekly news podcast.

I earned a masters' in investigative and audio journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in 2021. My capstone investigative series, “When Home is School,” was published by Chalkbeat and its accompanying audio documentary was a finalist for the Deadline Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in Radio or Audio Investigative Reporting in 2023.

My work has also earned awards from the Sidney Hillman Foundation (Hillman Award 2022) and the Newswomen's Club of New York (Front Page Award 2022). In 2022, I traveled to Berlin as a Fulbright scholar in the Berlin Capital Program for early-career journalists.

You might find me dodging the obstacles of the NYC streets on my bike, petting stray cats, or touching grass.