Jaweed Kaleem is a national correspondent at the Los Angeles Times. Based in L.A. with a focus on issues outside of California, he has traveled to dozens of states to cover news and deeply reported features on the complexity of the American experience. His articles frequently explore race, religion, politics, social debates and polarized society.
Kaleem was formerly based in London, where he was a lead news writer on Russia’s war on Ukraine, the death of Queen Elizabeth II and political crisis in the United Kingdom. In Europe, he launched The Times’ award-winning Global California initiative with coverage of American migrants in Portugal, Hollywood in the Baltics and the Nordic quest to win over U.S. video gaming.
Kaleem’s dispatches from the U.S. include a road trip from California to Oklahoma to tell the story of Sikh truckers on the “Punjabi American highway,” a year-long investigation into how COVID-19 devastated refugees working in one of the nation’s largest pork factories in Sioux Falls, S.D., and narratives exploring race, the 2020 election and the pandemic across America.
His work has received first-place citations from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society for Features Journalism, the Asian American Journalists Assn., the South Asian Journalists Assn., the National Headliner Awards, the American Academy of Religion, the Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards and the L.A. Press Club’s Southern California Journalism Awards.
Before joining The Times, Kaleem was a religion reporter and editor at HuffPost and a reporter at the Miami Herald, where he was a member of a Pulitzer Prize finalist team recognized for coverage of Haiti. A longtime fan of the religion beat, he is a former vice president of the Religion News Assn. and the Religion News Foundation and was a fellow in religion reporting at the East-West Center and the International Center for Journalists. Raised by Pakistani immigrants, he attended Emerson College in Boston and grew up in Northern Virginia.
Latest From This Author
Campus police and Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived at USC early Sunday morning to clear the camp.
May 5, 2024
At many universities across the country, graduation for the Class of 2024 will feel more like making it through airport security than a procession through a free-flowing campus green or a cheering stadium crowd.
May 5, 2024
A cascade of decisions that Folt made this spring around USC’s commencement and Israel-Hamas war-related protests inflamed tensions and opened wounds, presenting the most significant test of her tenure.
May 3, 2024
Broadcast news outlets throughout the world wanted to understand what happened at UCLA, where a pro-Palestinian student encampment was attacked.
May 2, 2024
Two USC commencement speakers are boycotting their speaking engagements to protest the university’s cancellation of a valedictorian’s graduation speech.
April 28, 2024
How USC’s controversial decision on Asna Tabassum’s valedictorian speech led to nearly two weeks of campus tension with 93 arrests and a canceled ‘main stage’ commencement.
April 27, 2024
Nearly 100 people, including students, were arrested at a peaceful protest at USC. Other college campuses across California have seen an increase in protests related to the Israel-Hamas war.
April 25, 2024
After tensions led USC to drop its valedictorian and keynote speaker from its main commencement ceremony, the school canceled its largest graduation event.
April 25, 2024
LAPD officers in riot gear arrested 93 people on trespassing charges as they cleared an encampment at the center of the USC campus that formed in protest against the Israel-Hamas war.
April 24, 2024
Encampments and protests took place at UC Berkeley and Cal Poly Humboldt, and plans were shaping up for more pro-Palestinian protests at California colleges and universities.
April 24, 2024