The Doomscroll News Report

Hanna and Amanda talk about the United States government shutdown and what's at stake, plus Russia's recent activities not just in Ukraine but also in other nearby countries. 

This week, Amanda and Hanna touch on the freedom of speech meltdown that happened in the U.S. following in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Then Amanda sits down with Michael Geier, the cinematographer for one of Taiwan's most successful documentaries to-date, "Invisible Nation" (or 看不見國家), to discuss the role of entertainment, and especially film, in informing a more engaged publi...

Hanna and Amanda talk about the youth uprisings in Nepal and Indonesia and ways in which Gen Z protesters have and haven't succeeded in changing the world. Read along with us: Nepal:   1. Nepal prime minister quits after deaths at protests sparked by social media ban (Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi, and Gaurav Pokharel in Kathmandu, The Guardian), 2. Nepal appoints its first female PM after h...

This week, Amanda is back in the driver's seat and covering a topic she and co-host Hanna have been looking forward to for a long time-- The results of the first anti-trust lawsuit against Google (even if they're disappointed by the results). Then they update on a topic they are both much less excited about, updates of Israel's attack in Qatar and the invasion of Palestine in-general. Read along w...

Hosts Hanna Bilinski and Amanda Stephens are finally in the same room together again and are discussing reunions and first-time unions of another sort. They discuss how India cozying up to China may or may not be the beginning of a "new world order" and what reasons U.S. President Donald Trump may have for reversing course (haha) and allowing Chinese foreign excange students back into the country....

This week, Hanna has invited boss lady Iris back into the studio to discuss the other side of the argument when it comes to nuclear power in Taiwan, plus the tricky matter of nuclear disarmament among the world's three biggest nuclear powers. Iris also shares a piece of her mind regarding gender representation in the newly reshuffled Cabinet.

Hanna invites former Rti host turned TaiwanPlus reporter Chris Gorin back to the studio to talk about Taiwan's future in AI and what the outlook is for the Ukraine war. 

Hanna brings Joey Chou back on to get his opinion on the ongoing tariff drama, the way Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is manuevering in the midst of it, and what's to be done about wildfires.

With Amanda away on a much needed vacation, Hanna brings Fil onto the show to talk Europe and his home country of Slovakia and to muse about whether the historic natural disasters that hit Russia recently feels like foreshadowing.  Read along with us: Taiwan and the EU: 1) Slovakian elections: 1) Russian earthquake: 1)

This week, Hanna's back to host a roundtable discussion with fellow Rti hosts and reporters, Iris Hsu and Tristan Hilderbrand, to talk about what happened with Taiwan's mass electroal recall movement, otherwise known as the Great Recall.  Read along with us: 1) Taiwan is paralyzed by political gridlock. A mass recall of ‘pro-China’ lawmakers could break that (Wayne Chang, CNN), 2)...

This week, Amanda is joined again by guest co-host Joey Chou to sew up loose ends from last week's episode into conspiracy theories and the Epstein Files case happening in the United States. Then, Amanda and Joey bond over shared shock and concern at the news that xAI, the parent company for X's infamous chatbot Grok, has recieved a heafty contract with the U.S. military just a week after that cha...

This week we have a special guest, Lauren Mastroni  the leading author of the thesis, “I one-hundred thousand percent blame it on QAnon”: The impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships from the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. We discuss how belief in the “big tent” conspiracy QAnon changed the political landscape, and paved the way for the Epst...

This week host Amanda is doing a GOOD-NEWS ONLY special apology episode. We can't help it that we doomscroll, which can make it increasingly feel like there's only badnews, but in the last week there's been a lot happening, especially in the climate and human-intrest world. Amanda calls up some of her friends to apoliguze for bad-news-dumping, and try to make it up with postive stories about drink...

This week we're tackling t he ongoing legal battles between AI and copyright laws, and Budapest's incredible (and illegal) Pride parade with guest  co-host, Joey Chou! Joey takes a break from hosting his own current events show "Beyond the Reefs" to rehash one of our favorite in-office disagreements (AI) on air, and we both wax about the courage it takes to show up against government threats....

This week, hosts Amanda and Hanna continue to talk about the Iran-Israel conflict, and how the United States decided to jump in over the weekend, causing Iranian couterstrikes, and then a sudden ceasefire agreement a littler over a week after Israel's first strikes into the country. Then Amanda gets to an issue on american soil near-and-dear to her heart, about how Senate members are suggesting a...

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 them. Then we discussing the new Israel-Iran conflict and where we think it's headed. Read along with us: On RFK jr and Vaccines in the U.S.: 1. Six babies with unvaccinated mother...

This week, we're covering allegations of Elon Musk's drug use and his public break up with Donald Trump, what happened to the crew of the Madleen, and what's going on (at least at time of recording) in LA. What a week!   Read along with us: All about Elon Musk: 1. On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama // (Kirsten Grind, and Megan Twohey, New York Times), 2. How Bitte...

Talking about the developments on the Ukraine War, and also how AI doesn't yet have free speech, but IS probably willing to doxx you.   Read along with us: Ukraine War: 2. Russia and Ukraine complete largest prisoner swap (Reuters) 2. Hectic two weeks leaves Russia confident - and peace in Ukraine feeling no closer (Steve Rosenberg, BBC) 3. Germany's Merz: No more range limits for w...

The gals talk about birthright citizenship in the United States, Trump’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the deportation of immigrant detainees, and the latest in a long string of instances involving Chinese nationals sailing over to Taiwan on rubber dinghies. All under the broad heading of borders - what it means to be born within them, to cross them, and to get kic...

It feels like the whole world caught fire, or threatened to, while we were on our special topic last week. So this week we're covering some of the most important news stories from our feeds. Listen and commiserate with us as we grapple with how difficult it can be to stay (accurately) informed! Read along with us: Israeli plan to "capture" Gaza: 1. Israel security cabinet approves plan to ‘c...

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 has on us on the daily and what factors make it so difficult to tackle? To help us answer those questions and amore, Hanna invited PhD student PeiChieh Hsu. She's a researcher and...

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 on China. On the Canadian elections: 1. Carney revives Liberal fortunes as party secures historic fourth consecutive election victory (Neil Moss, Irem Koca, and Eleanor Wang from th...

This week, we tackle a wide range of topics, starting with the consequences of the WhiteHouse welcoming the self-proclaimed "world's coolest dictator", then the effects of several antitrust suits looking to breakup META and Google, while also taking aim at other tech giants. We wrap up with a short discussion on the passing of Pope Francis, as well as our thoughts on the lists of possible successo...

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 close with a pulse-check on where things stand now. You can read along with us, by looking at the articles we cited for this discussion: On the dissolution of the USGAM...