BRIAN J. KAREM'S BIOGRAPHY

Former President George Bush called him "rude."

by John Kelly, Brian J. Karem

Former President George Bush called him "rude." Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich refused to be interviewed by him, saying, "I'd rather talk to anyone else." And syndicated columnist Carl Rowan once said of Brian Karem that he wished "...we had a hundred reporters with the guts and irreverence that (Karem) displayed." Brian Karem, 41, author of five books, including the best selling "Above the Law" is an award-winning investigative reporter, writer, producer, and former correspondent for Fox Television's America's Most Wanted.

He is a "tough, honest reporter," Sam Donaldson once wrote of him, and one who has also managed to aggravate, prod and poke at every leading politician in the country during the last ten years. A well known incident occurred in 1992 with former President George Bush at the International Drug Summit News Conference in San Antonio, Texas. When Bush refused to answer Karem's question about why many DEA agents considered the "War on Drugs a joke," Karem was fired from KMOL-TV. Karem has won major awards for two documentaries, "Texans at War" and "Good to Go" which chronicled the Persian Gulf War through the eyes of the members of a Combat Support Hospital. He was also one of the first reporters in the world to enter Kuwait City during the Gulf War, arriving just after that city's liberation from Iraq.

Besides covering the Gulf War, Karem has traveled extensively through Mexico, Canada and Colombia. While in Colombia he covered the international search for drug lord Pablo Escobar and became the first Western reporter allowed inside Escobar's palatial prison following Escobar's escape. Following that, he went on to cover thirty-seven days of the siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Karem's first book, Shield the Source, (New Horizon Press, 1992) chronicles the events that occurred in 1990 when he became one of the first television reporters in the country ever to be jailed for protecting a confidential source. He was jailed four times and spent more than two weeks behind bars before being freed. He subsequently appeared as a guest on a variety of national news programs including Nightline and CNN's Crossfire discussing the situation and its ramifications. Karem Vs. Priest is now considered a precedent setting case in providing journalists with the ability to protect their sources (Mass Media Law, 1993). Karem was the recipient of the National Press Club's Freedom of the Press Award for his actions in that case.

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