I am an award-winning investigative journalist and foreign correspondent who has worked for wire agencies, newspapers, and magazines around the world.

I also help produce a global investigative journalism podcast called On Spec. Launched in 2019, it features deep dives from reporters in dozens of countries on topics like disinformation, migration, and other issues that transcend boundaries.

From 2022 to 2024, I was a national investigative reporter at ProPublica, where I looked into topics like the proliferation of armed drones worldwide, as well as topics at home in the US, like the obstacles indigenous communities face in accessing water in the southwest, and the failure of body-worn cameras to bring accountability in police killings across the country. My work was recognized for awards, and cited by lawmakers and international oversight bodies in the US and Europe.

Before ProPublica, I worked as a correspondent for Al Jazerea English based in Turkey, where I covered stories like the war in Ukraine, migration, and Turkey’s downward economic spiral. Between 2013 and 2015, I was based in Pakistan, and I have returned there several times since, including as a Correspondent for Reuters covering Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2020 and 2021. I covered topics like the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I covered two wars  in Pakistan: in the northwest, and in Balochistan.  I have written about Pakistan’s dilemma of how to incorporate its religious and ethnic makeup, as well as how the government has struggled to maintain control and loyalty at its periphery, like in the north, at the edge of Central Asia.  And I wrote about the fallout from conflicts, like the cases of thousands of missing persons, and the toll of US drone strikes.

In 2017, I received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to report from Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where locals lived under a 1901 law that allowed collective punishment.  I was one of the few Western journalists to report from places like North Waziristan.

I have reported from other regions as well.  I wrote about religious and ethnic strife in Mexico, and in Kyrgyzstan.  I have also covered the ongoing effort by China to incorporate the Uyghur ethnic minority into the country, from both inside Xinjiang, and among the Uyghur diaspora outside.

I am a witness to two violent military coups — a successful one in Egypt which ended in a massacre, and one that was thwarted by civilian resistance in Turkey and has left an indelible mark on that country.

Since 2015, I was based in Turkey, reporting on a country with a diverse social fabric that often finds itself at the center of global news.  I have covered the often complicated play between religious and political groups, and the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.  I have also reported from inside Syria on the war there, the rise of Islamic State, and the lives of those fleeing that conflict.

I am a recipient of a National Geographic Society Explorer’s grant for a project aiming to raise awareness of Afghan refugees: why they leave their country, and the consequences of a global community that increasingly refuses to see them as refugees.

My work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, ProPublica, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Geographic, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Nation, IRIN News, Al Jazeera English, the Boston Review, the Daily Beast, the Globe and Mail, and other outlets.  I have also occasionally done radio work, for Free Speech Radio News.

I was born in Pakistan and raised in New Orleans.  I speak native-level Urdu, and can get by pretty well in Arabic and Turkish. I have an MS in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University.

You can reach me at umarfarooqmedia at gmail dot com.