Talk:Michael Totten

Additional material wanted

I'm taking over this talk page :). I think we need more material in this article-- as it stands now it's barely stub quality. I've been reading his blog since his "builders vs defenders" post when he still had a day job. Totten, before embedding with the US occupation forces, travelled independently as a tourist in the Iraqi Kurdish region. Before that, he toured various areas in the Middle East, including Libya and living in Beirut. He's a self-funded freelancer (in his blog he has hinted that he's taken paid assignments from the US Government). For now I'm just adding his 2007 award but I'd like to see if there are any citable sources documenting more of his history than the past year.

Wellspring 01:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I am the author, Michael J. Totten. I'm sorry if I'm not signing in correctly. Much of what Wellspring wrote above is inaccurate. I never went to Iraqi Kurdistan as a tourist, only as a journalist. And I certainly have never worked for the US government in any way whatsoever. I worked for a few weeks in Kurdistan as a consultant for a private company. I signed a non-disclosure agreement and cannot reveal the name of the company or what I did, but I will say that the company is not in any way related to the oil industry, intelligence, or national security. It is entirely benign by anyone's definition of the word. If anyone wants to know my actual bio, email me and ask. Don't guess. Thank you. - Michael J. Totten —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miketotten (talk • contribs) 04:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Travel in middle east: 

Costa Rica - Apparently he traveled extensively prior to his blogging career
Technical Writer / Software Tester - Was he laid off or did he resign? 
Tunisia - Pleasure trip with his wife
Libya - LA Weekly, sat on story
Lebanon (arrived in time for Cedar Revolution), then live there for 6 months
Israel - wartime coverage
Turkey - Purely stopover to Iraq or did he do stuff there?
Iraq - Extensive reporting from Kurdish region, now embedded with US forces in the Sunni Triangle

I think we can condense this somewhat, but as his profile has expanded a longer article is merited. I'm holding back on changing the main page due to a sourcing question. Totten is referenced extensively by other bloggers, and has been mentioned in the mainstream media, but I'm wondering how much of this is sourceable. Most of the blogger coverage doesn't conform to WP:RS reliable source guidelines-- and the stuff I can cite mostly talks about his later career. Do we wait for some mainstream magazine or newspaper to profile him before we start? Or can we cite his own blog or other bloggers, noting that the information is unverified?

Wellspring 17:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Faux Pas

The last post accurately removes a reference to him publishing in the National Review. I was about to complain about subjects editing their own biographies; however, wikipedia policies (bios of living persons) now permit this for removing unsourced or poorly sourced material. So it's a righteous edit. :)

Wellspring 18:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

liberal v centralist v conservative

Some of Mr Totten's views do seem to have changed, to the center or even conservative, but from all that I've read of his opinions, most of them remain liberal. One can be (say) conservative while being pro-choice, or liberal while being pro-gun, or centralist and believe in both (or neither.) That some think that only conservatives might be in favor of the Iraq war, or advocate voting for Bush, that's a vast overgeneralization. htom 06:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not sure why some alter the article to call him "conservative " (assuming there are multiple people and just not one person doing it from home anonymously, from work anonymously, and with a username). If it is conservative to treat moderate Jews and Palestinians and Lebanese and Kurds as sympathetic human beings worthy of basic human rights, then I hope that everyone in the world has the basic decency to be conservative. If it's conservative to not support John Kerry, I guess most Americans are conservative. If it's conservative to not support an immediate pull-out from Iraq, it seems that most Americans, although unsatisfied with the war, are nevertheless "conservative." And if it's conservative to hold a different point of view from the person or persons continually defacing this article, then I guess Wikipedia guidelines are conservative, too! Calbaer 06:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Michael self-identifies as liberal, though in the run-up to the Iraq War he was a hawkish liberal. There's a movement by liberals to make the Democratic party uniformly anti-war, so I can see why they might want to label him a conservative. His writing has focused on the middle east, so it's not clear what his positions on any major political issues are. He's moderate or liberal, though still guardedly hawkish, IMO. Unless someone wants to link a citation, I think it's safe to leave political labels off the article.

Wellspring 18:38, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Exactly.

To take Wellspring's excellent argument one step further, I say it's unsafe to put a political label on the article (barring a self-identification from Mr Totten or something equally conclusive). Cheers, CWC 10:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Funded by foreign governments? No.

I am the author in question here, Michael J. Totten. I hope I signed in correctly.

I removed the reference to "some of my trips" being "funded by foreign governments." That's a ridiculous characterization of how I work. I went on a single junket to Azerbaijan, and the government of that country was enraged when I correctly accused them in print of rigging the recent election. As far as I know, I am not even allowed back in the country. Whoever wrote that some of my trips are funded by foreign governments is possibly malicious, is less than half-right at best, has no idea of the backstory that took place out of the public view, and made it appear as though any number of my trips abroad might be paid for by foreign governments, which emphatically is not the case.

One of my trips abroad was paid for by a foreign government, and that foreign government hated the press they got in return. In no way whatsoever does this compromise my independence. If anything, it boosts my independence. No one can buy good press from me. No one.