Karem was born in 1961 in Louisville, Kentucky. His great grandfather emigrated to the United States from Lebanon. After finishing Seneca High School in 1979, he attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, playing football and graduating with a degree in journalism in 1983. The same year, he married his wife, Pamela J. Russell.
Career
In 1983, Karem joined The Montgomery County Courier in Conroe, Texas as sports editor. After leaving the Courier in 1984, Karem switched to television joining WKYT-TV in Lexington, Kentucky as a political reporter. He returned to Texas in 1986 to work at KMOL-TV in San Antonio. In 1990, Karem was jailed in contempt of court for refusing to reveal the name of a source who arranged an interview with a suspect involved in killing a police officer. During the Gulf War, he was one of the first reporters to enter Kuwait City after its liberation. During the National Drug Summit in San Antonio, Texas in 1992, Karem asked then President George H. W. Bush to comment on claims referring to the event as a "joke". Karem lost his job after the incident but later gained an interview with Sam Donaldson on ABC and a mention from The Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Following his termination from KMOL, Karem joined the television program, America's Most Wanted as a producer and correspondent. While covering the War on drugs, he became the first American journalist allowed inside Pablo Escobar's palatial prison after Escobar's escape from Colombian authorities. In 1997, Karem joined WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri as an investigative reporter. While at WDAF-TV, Karem alleges that his superiors suppressed a story on the pesticide chemical, Dursban, prompting him to leave the station. Between 2004 and 2018, Karem served as the executive editor of the Montgomery County Sentinel in Rockville, Maryland and authored the Editor's Notebook, a column covering Montgomery County, Maryland. Between 2012 and 2015, he was also the publisher for MoCoVox.Com, an online content provider. While covering the Trump presidency, Karem gained attention for his interactions with administration officials. On June 27, 2017, Karem confronted then deputy White House Press SecretarySarah Huckabee Sanders on "inflammatory" comments about the performance of the press while covering President Donald Trump. One year later, Karem confronted Sanders again on the Administration's policy of seizing children from their parents at United States border crossings, saying "Come on, Sarah, you're a parent! Don't you have any empathy for what these people are going through? They have less than you do. Sarah, come on, seriously." On July 11, 2019, following an event at the White House Rose Garden, Karem called conservative social media representatives in attendance "a group of people eager for demonic possession." The remark prompted Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant to President Trump and now a radio talk-show host, to confront Karem, yelling across the lawn: "And you're a journalist, right?" Karem replied with what some consider a taunt saying, "Come on over here and talk to me, brother. We can go outside and have a long conversation." Accusing Karem of issuing a threat, Gorka walked across the lawn yelling, "You're not a journalist! You're a punk!" in front of a row of White House media and cameras. Following the July 11 incident, the White House Press Office suspended Karem's press pass on August 2, 2019. Karem filed a lawsuit in response before U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Rudolph Contreras blocked the suspension.
Warning Signs: A Guidebook for Parents: How to Read the Early Signals of Low Self-Esteem, Addiction, and Hidden Violence in Your Kids, co-author with John Kelly. .
