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 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. 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. On June 5, 2020, Judge
David S. Tatel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the White House Press Office wrongly suspended Karem's press pass. In 2023, Karem wrote an article for
Salon titled "Far-right MAGA theocrats: Most dangerous threat to America". ==Music==