Robert Young Pelton

Robert Young Pelton (born July 25, 1955) is a Canadian-American author, journalist, and documentary film director.

Pelton's work usually consists of conflict reporting and interviews with military and political figures in war zones.

Pelton was born July 25, 1955, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

At age 10, he began attending Grade 6 at Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School in Selkirk, Manitoba, a school that became famous for a wilderness curriculum that included one thousand mile canoe trips, snowshoe marathons, raising animals, and advanced study of Latin, history, and religion.

Later an offshoot/affiliate school (St John's Ontario) became known for the deaths of a number of students in what became known as the Lake Timiskaming tragedy.

At age 17, Pelton began in the Toronto mailroom of the ad agency BBDO before being promoted to copywriter.

He then worked for various multimedia companies that did product launches, which led to him working for Apple Inc., where he worked on the Lisa and later the Macintosh launch.

Pelton licensed data-based travel content to companies such as Microsoft and IBM, selling his businesses to turn full-time to conflict coverage in the mid-1990s.

He began with a two-book deal from Random House (The Adventurist and Come Back Alive), a television series from Discovery called Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places, and a major web event with ABC News called Dangerous Places.

Pelton created the concept of "solo" or "solo journalist".

someone who provides text, video, photos, and audio from remote regions without support.

He founded the website Dangerous Magazine at which he published his own and other writers' articles about adventure travel.

He was involved in negotiations with the President of Equatorial Guinea regarding the early release of coup plotters Simon Mann and Nick du Toit, who had worked for Executive Outcomes in the mid-1990s.

His first break as a writer came in 1991, when he reported on the Camel Trophy, an annual competition by Land Rover across difficult terrain in Africa.

Pelton competed for the U.S. team and published his account in Soldier of Fortune.

In 1993, Pelton purchased the name of the Fielding's Travel Guide from William Morrow and Company and published some traditional guides that were refocused toward younger, independent travelers.

He was also the host of the Discovery Travel Channel series entitled Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places from 1998 to 2003.

Now residing in Los Angeles, Pelton currently writes books and produces documentaries on conflict-related subjects and documentaries.

Pelton has been present at conflicts such as the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi in Afghanistan, the Battle of Grozny (1999–2000) in Chechnya, the rebel siege to take Monrovia in Liberia, and the siege on Villa Somalia in Mogadishu, and has been with ground forces in about 40 other conflicts.

He spent time with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance pre-9/11, the CIA during the hunt for Osama bin Laden and also with both insurgents and Blackwater security contractors during the war in Iraq.

Pelton's regularly published survival and political guide The World's Most Dangerous Places, provides practical and survival information for people who work and travel in high-risk zones, and is a New York Times bestseller.

Pelton contributed to National Geographic Adventure as both a contributing editor and a columnist from January 2001 to 2007.

In January 2003, Pelton was on assignment for National Geographic Adventure in the Darién Gap when two 22-year-old travelers and he were abducted by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

The trio was held in the jungle for 10 days before being released.

In 2006, Pelton teamed up with Eason Jordan, former head of international news for CNN, and several others to launch Iraq Slogger, a clearinghouse of news and information coming out of Iraq during the Iraq War.

The site was intended to aggregate articles by both foreign correspondents and Iraqi journalists, as well as nonprofessionals.

In December 2007, he released an article on Blackwater Worldwide.

The story was documented in the May 2008 Men's Journal article "How to Stage a Coup".

In December 2008, Pelton travelled the Horn of Africa with both pirates and an antipiracy crew researching the piracy and antipiracy industry.

In 2008, Pelton and Jordan founded AfPax Insider, a newsgathering and research service in Afghanistan and Pakistan modeled on Iraq Slogger.

The venture provided free content on its website and was partially funded by the U.S. military.

Controversy arose when a Defense Department official who was operating an unauthorized spy ring allegedly diverted funds that were intended to pay the open-source project Pelton named AfPax.

According to Pelton, the site had insufficient income and ceased operations in 2009.

In January 2009, Pelton resumed immersion-style coverage by going inside the U.S. Army's controversial Human Terrain System.

Around that time, he also spent a year as an advisor to NATO's Afghanistan commander.

According to Jordan, the venture never had a "full-fledged launch" into offering a premium subscription service to private clients, and due to insufficient funding, remained a free website until it became inactive in August 2009.

In 2011, Pelton created Somalia Report.

With assistance from around 140 locals and western editors, Pelton provided ground coverage of al-Shabaab, pirates, governments, contractors, intelligence groups, and regular people on a 24/7 information website.

In June 2015, Pelton started publishing the Migrant Report to track the movement of refugees and migrants.

The venture was sponsored by a non-profit organization in Malta.