society
Hosted by Francesca Maria Lorenzini · society · EN
The Middle East, or South-West Asia, is closer than you think. Every two weeks, Nearer East pulls up a chair and invites you into conversations with the journalists, thinkers, and activists shaping the region today. Beyond the noise of the 24-hour news cycle, the podcast dives into the stories that last: from cultural preservation under fire in Gaza, to Iranian journalists in the diaspora, to the uneasy realities of rebuilding Syria. Hosted by Francesca Maria Lorenzini, an on-the-ground journalist in the region, Nearer East is made for curious minds. It cuts through jargon, challenges clichés and replaces headlines with human stories, grounded in lived experience and sharp analysis. If you want to understand South-West Asia not as a monolith, but as a place of people, ideas and contradictions, this is where you start.
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
28%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchThe Middle East, or South-West Asia, is closer than you think. Every two weeks, Nearer East pulls up a chair and invites you into conversations with the journalists, thinkers, and activists shaping the region today.
Nearer East is hosted by Francesca Maria Lorenzini. The show has published 9 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "What Makes UpScrolled Different? with Issam Hijazi" (30 September 2026, 11 minutes), "Syria’s Shifting Media Landscape with Natacha Danon" (6 May 2026, 12 minutes), and "Challenging Colonial Narratives in Refugee Representation with Yafa El Masri" (15 April 2026, 24 minutes).
Nearer East publishes roughly every two weeks, with episodes averaging 20 minutes across 9 episodes.
Booking probability for Nearer East is 28%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Nearer East requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Nearer East's contact route on record: verified email.
Francesca Maria Lorenzini hosts Nearer East, a society podcast with 9 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Episode #1
Can social media be built differently? In my conversation with Issam Hijazi, founder of UpScrolled, I explore the story behind a platform that aims to rethink the way we experience social media. We talk about what...
Episode #8
<p>Journalism in Syria is changing but the fear that once defined it hasn’t fully disappeared.</p><p></p><p>Natacha Danon, journalist and executive director of Syria Direct, reflects on reporting under the Assad regime...
Episode #7
<p>Refugees are often depicted as helpless children, but what if that image itself stems from a colonial legacy?<br />Researcher Yafa El Masri, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, saw firsthand how...
Episode #6
<p>Joe Snell is an award-winning Assyrian American journalist reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq. His work has taken him across Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Europe and the United States, with bylines in outlets like...
Episode #5
<p>Laura Silvia Battaglia is an Italian journalist covering the Middle East (what she and other colleagues prefer to call South West Asia) and a specialist on Yemen, where she lived for years after the Arab uprisings...
Episode #4
<p>What if asking a single question could cost you your job?</p><p>In this episode of “Nearer East,” I sit down with Gabriele Nunziati, whose question to the European Commission — whether Israel should be required to...
Episode #3
<p>What is Kurdistan, and why does it remain one of the world’s largest stateless nations?</p><p>Simone Gavazzi, teaching fellow at Maastricht University and filmmaker specializing in migration, minority rights, and...
Episode #2
<p>Most coverage of Iran feeds us a simplified, often biased narrative, highlighting nuclear threats and proxy conflicts while ignoring Iran’s nuanced realities.</p><p>But what if the true story of Iran is much richer...
Episode #1
<p>What remains of a nation when its history is turned to rubble? In the first episode of "Nearer East," I spoke with Sophie Constantin, a Belgian-Lebanese archaeologist and journalist who has spent years chronicling...
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