DAREDEVIL SCRIBE KIDNAPPED

DAREDEVIL SCRIBE KIDNAPPED
Robert Young Pelton, one of the world's gutsiest journalists, has likely been kidnapped by Colombian rebels, CNN reports. Pelton was on assignment for National Geographic Adventure magazine in the Panamanian province of Darien -- a haven for Colombian guerillas -- when he was nabbed with two other Americans, Mark Wedeven and Megan Smaker, both 22.
Pelton has become well known for finding stories in places that most sane people would never dare to visit: Chechnya, Uganda, Kosovo, Sudan, and dozens more.
"Some of Pelton's adventures include breaking American citizens out of jail in Colombia, living with the Dogon people in the Sahel, thundering down forbidden rivers in leaky native canoes, plowing through East African swamps with the U.S. Camel Trophy team, hitchhiking through war-torn Central America, and completing the first circumnavigation of the island of Borneo by land," his bio says. But that only begins to scratch the surface of Pelton's remarkable life.
I met Pelton once, recently, when he spoke at The Moth, New York's ongoing celebration of storytelling. In a rambling monologue, he talked about how he managed to get the first video interview ever with the heads of the Taliban. Dressed wrinkly, Pelton seemed bored, distracted as he recounted the events -- like calling Mullah Omar and his crew "a bunch of women" to goad them into talking on tape. It was if he couldn't wait to get out of Manhattan, and back into the action.