New York-based investigative journalist with bylines at The Washington Post, CNN, The Verge, and more.
Shannon Liao is a multimedia, investigative journalist known for breaking scoops in the tech, gaming, and business worlds.
Liao broke the scoops that Tumblr banned porn, that Microsoft would support gaming unions and that Riot would settle its $100 million sexual harassment lawsuit. She’s appeared on countless cable news segments and podcasts to discuss reporting.
Read my work
Here’s a link to notable stories I’ve written. I’ve contributed to over 4,000 articles across The Washington Post, CNN, CNN Politics, CNN Business, The Verge, Polygon, and more. Currently, I’m freelancing a selection of stories I pitched at The New York Times and Vice while posting breaking news to my Substack, which you can subscribe to for free.
How to pitch me? I am interested in telling more stories about the structures that power our world, the decision-makers at a crossroads, complicated technologies simplified for the layperson. I also like to revisit forgotten stories, voices, ideas. In my twelve years of doing this, I’ve covered a whole city and a planet, too. I’ve done local New York news by sitting down at City Hall and interviewed Black Lives Matter protesters in 2014 by walking up to them during their marches. I used to Skype call world governments to get comment on pro-democracy protests. I once profiled Andrew Yang, years before he ever ran for president, and more recently, I’ve profiled Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
I’m based in NYC, but travel semi-annually to California.
Become a source
I make phone calls, emails or Signal messaging with me simple and straightforward. There are no “Gotcha!” moments. I’m honest and transparent and I explain out what the process of being a source entails.