How to balance staying informed with staying grounded: Leslie Liao, Eric Gao, and Iris Hsu

How to balance staying informed with staying grounded: Leslie Liao, Eric Gao, and Iris Hsu

Author: Amanda Stephens, Hanna Bilinski,Rti December 29, 2025 Duration: 0:00

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna (mostly) take a break from current news to reflect on how we manage to stay high-information, low stress by talking to some other professionals in the news world about how they achieve work-life balance when their job literally is the news (especially in these crazy times)!

We'll be hearing from Eric Gao, a copy-editior and anchor at Taiwan Plus, Iris Hsu host of Rti's own The Divide and current breaking news writer, and anchor and reporter Leslie Liao, also from Taiwan Plus.

Read along with us:

The 12/19 Taipei metro attack: 1. Suspect in Taipei attacks that left 2 dead, 7 injured jumps to death (Focus Taiwan), 2. Taipei mass stabbing likely 'lone wolf' attack: Police (Focus Taiwan), 3. Local governments move to honor man killed trying to stop Taipei attacks (Focus Taiwan)


Every week, writers Hanna Bilinski and Amanda Stephens find themselves stuck in the same cycle: falling down a rabbit hole of alarming headlines and relentless updates. The Doomscroll News Report is their attempt to climb back out and make sense of it all. Instead of just recapping the major international stories that flooded their feeds, they pause to place each event within a broader context, asking what it really means for the global conversation. This isn't a straight news broadcast; it's a dialogue between two curious observers who bring on knowledgeable guests to deepen the discussion. By weaving together expert insight with their own perspectives as individuals striving to stay informed, they create a space for understanding that goes beyond the reactive nature of the daily news cycle. Tuning into this podcast feels like joining a necessary conversation that seeks clarity and connection amidst the noise, offering a thoughtful alternative to the endless scroll.
Author: Language: en_us Episodes: 51

The Doomscroll News Report
Podcast Episodes
The MMR vaccine in the US and a new Israel-Iran conflict [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
This week, Hanna and Amanda discuss the state of vaccines in the United States, especially the MMR (Measels, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine and current Health and Human Services secretary Robert F Kennedy's flip-flopping on…
Investigating birth rate declines, with PeiChieh Hsu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
This week, we're tackling just one subject-- but it's one that seems to plague our feeds every other week: Birth rates! In a world where birth rates globally are on the downturn, we wanted to know what effect that really…
Canadian election results and tariff take-backsies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
This week, we go over the latest news out of Canada, particularly the results of their elections and how squabbles with their neighbor swayed those results, in addition to the 145% tariff that very neighbor has slapped o…
The ripple effects following the defunding of USGAM [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:00
This week on the first-ever episode of the Doomscroll News Report, we’re tackling how the cuts to the United States Agency for Global Media (USGAM) stand to impact the state of journalism now and in the near future, and…