Michael Totten

American independent journalist — who covered the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus as an independent blogger-journalist — one of the pioneer independent online war correspondents — author of The Road to Fatima Gate and Where the West Ends.

Creates the independent blogger-correspondent model for war reporting — Totten's model (funding his own Middle East journalism through reader subscriptions and then through advances) demonstrated that independent reporting without institutional backing was possible in the early internet era.