About Us

Clarity in a Noisy World

Let’s be honest for a second.

Most of us open the news these days and feel like we’re walking into a food fight. One side is screaming. The other side is screaming louder. HeadLines are designed to make us angry, scared, or outraged… because that’s what keeps us clicking. The actual truth? It’s usually sitting quietly somewhere in the middle, getting ignored.

That’s why HeadLines Decoded exists.

We started this site because we got tired of the noise. Tired of stories that feel more like political weapons than information. Tired of watching good people- people who just want to understand what’s really going on get lost in the middle of two extremes that don’t actually represent them.

I’m Todd Ruffner-Schoenfeld, founder and Editor-in-Chief of HeadLines Decoded. I didn’t come from traditional journalism. My career has mostly been in the IT world systems, data, infrastructure, problem-solving. In that world, things are either true or they’re not. There’s no “my truth” and “your truth.” There’s just the truth, and then everything else is either incomplete, mistaken, or spin.

That binary mindset stuck with me. When I look at modern media, I see a lot of spin and very little clean data. So I decided to do something about it.

I grew up in Clyde, Ohio, a small, very conservative town in Northwestern Ohio. I went to college at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Kentucky (right across the river from Cincinnati). I spent about 18 years in the Cincinnati area, then moved out to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I got a real taste of the tech startup world. From there it was Orlando, then Dallas, and finally back to Central Florida, where my husband and I live today in Clermont.

Along the way, I’ve been a Republican. I’ve been a Democrat. These days I jokingly call myself a “Republicrat” because neither major party fully feels like home. And from the conversations I’ve had over the years, I know I’m not alone. A whole lot of Americans are sitting in that same messy middle, watching both sides claim to speak for them while the media cheers on the fight.

That’s the space HeadLines Decoded was built for.

What We Actually Do

Our job is simple (even if it’s not easy):

We take important, complicated, or heavily spun stories and decode them. We strip away the emotional language, the selective framing, and the engagement bait. We tell you what’s confirmed, what’s disputed, and what’s still unknown. Then we explain what it actually means for regular people, not just for the two political tribes.

We’re not here to tell you what to think.
We’re here to give you clean enough information so you can think for yourself.

We cover politics, health, technology, culture, business, travel, Disney (yes, we go there), and whatever else matters in the moment. If a story is being used as a weapon, we try to take the weapon away and leave the facts on the table.

We Want to Hear From You

This isn’t a one-way street.

If there’s a headline that confuses you… if there’s a story that feels off… if there’s a topic you keep seeing people fight about but no one seems to explain clearly… send it to us. Seriously. We want those ideas. Some of our best pieces will come from readers saying, “Can you please decode this for me?”

You can reach us anytime through email:[email protected]. We read everything.

Looking Ahead

Right now, HeadLines Decoded is still young. We’re building the foundation carefully: fact-based writing, clear standards, and a consistent voice. We have guidelines ready for writing partners and plan to open that door once we’re ready. We’re also working toward being included on Apple News and other platforms so more people who are tired of the noise can find us.

We’re not trying to be the biggest site. We’re trying to be one of the most trustworthy.

A Final Thought

I spent most of my career in environments where accuracy mattered where you couldn’t just “spin” a system into working. That experience shaped how I approach journalism. I believe most Americans still live in the middle. They want straight talk. They want context. They want someone who will look at both sides of a story and tell them what’s actually going on without the lectures or the rage.

That’s what we’re building here.

Thanks for being part of it.

Let’s cut through the noise together.

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Todd Ruffner-Schoenfeld

Founder & Editor-in-Chief
HeadLines Decoded