About

Lost in Headlines — or LxH for short, is a space for those who have grown weary of surface narratives and are searching for the murkier truths behind our mediated realities. Here, the aim isn’t to win arguments or provide tidy answers, but to explore the deeper structures — political, cultural and psychological, that shape the way power is wielded and stories are told. This site is part inquiry, part observation, and part refusal: a refusal to accept that the world is as simple as the headlines make it out to be.

My name is Mahdi, and I work at the intersection of political analysis, digital media, and cultural critique. I’ve spent the past two decades or so moving between Tehran, various European capitals, and the online spaces where identities are constructed, blurred, and sometimes unravelled. Much of my work draws from my background in intelligence and technology, though I’ve also spent time behind the camera and on the editing floor — learning how stories are cut and reassembled.

This site brings together commentary, essays, visual notes, and fragments — things that don’t always have a clear genre but still matter. You’ll find reflections on Iran and Middle Eastern geopolitics alongside media criticism, disinformation analysis, and the occasional dive into global politics and European affairs. I try not to write from a fixed position. Some days I’m an analyst, other days more of an observer or translator — in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

Being multilingual and culturally in-between has made me especially attentive to contradiction. I write in English, but Persian always echoes in the background. That echo — that dissonance — shapes not just what I notice, but how I express it. I suppose this site is also an attempt to make peace with that state of in-betweenness: to turn it into a vantage point rather than a limitation.

Lost in Headlines isn’t affiliated with any institution, party, or outlet. It is independent by necessity: the freedom to be uncertain — to think aloud, to change one’s mind, to ask unpolished questions. Things that feel increasingly rare in our time. This site tries to protect that space.

If you've found your way here, you might be someone who doesn’t quite fit into categories either. Good. You’re welcome here.