About Masoud Behnoud Massoud Behnoud, (مسعود بهنود in Persian) a prominent Iranian journalist, historian and writer, was born on July 27, 1947 in Tehran. He started his work as a journalist in 1964. During his long career he worked as an investigating journalist for different newspapers. He founded more than 20 newspapers and magazines, none of them are currently in publication. Masoud Behnoud currently lives in the UK working as a freelance journalist for a number of media organisations, mainly BBC Persian Service, for which he has worked for the past fourteen years. His debut in the west was the launch of ‘Khanoum’, by Pegasus Elliott McKenzie in November 2008.