Going Global: Longtime U.S. Journalist Asma Khalid Reaches a New, International Audience

Professional journalist Asma Khalid, BAJ’06, grew up in northwest Indiana with PBS on TV, NPR on the radio, and issues of the Post-Tribune scattered around the house. A neighbor also happened to write for the Post-Tribune.

Reading a biography of the late 19th and early 20th century journalist Nellie Bly further contributed to her choice of vocation as Khalid would eventually go on to work as National Public Radio’s White House correspondent and co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast, covering every U.S. election from 2014 through 2024. She has also appeared on the air at ABC News, PBS’s Washington Week, and many other news outlets.

As a Wells Scholar at IU, Khalid had the opportunity to study abroad at the London School of Economics. Majoring in journalism and political science, she earned a bachelor’s degree from IU and a master of philosophy degree in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Khalid recently left NPR for a position with the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Washington, D.C., bureau, where she co-hosts the daily BBC podcast The Global Story, which began airing in early September.

The following interview with Asma Khalid was conducted in July 2025.

In terms of local inspiration, we had this local newspaper, and I didn’t know journalists, right? Like, I didn’t know people growing up who worked at The New York Times, The Washington Post, but I did have one of the girls that we grew up with in our neighborhood on the same street as us when we were young children. Her father was a reporter at The Post-Tribune newspaper, and I remember that. It was just sort of my first exposure to the idea that you could even be a reporter, a writer as a career. And I, at a young age, felt just really excited by the idea of what journalism could do.

I read a kid’s version of a biography of Nellie Bly, who was this muckraking journalist of the early 20th century, and I really fell in love with it. Pretty much at a young age, I wanted to do something like this. So, I ended up working at the student newspaper.

And I don’t know how exactly this came about, but I had an opportunity to write for the local paper while I was also in high school—for The Post-Tribune. I used to write a weekly thing for them, and that was amazing. Later on, actually, in college, my first internship was with The Post-Tribune in northwest Indiana as well. In my senior year.

You know, the funny thing is I kept all my clippings for ages. And then, it’s one of those things where you’re trying to help your parents out. So [I decided not] to keep everything in my childhood bedroom [from] before. So, I don’t know that I kept them. But, for ages, I kept every single piece that I’d written in high school for The Post-Tribune.

And I had clippings even in my stuff from the high school newspaper, Inklings. I was really proud of a lot of that stuff. I think at some point in the process of trying to just make things tidier, I got rid of some of those things a few years back.

So, you came to IU and you were a Wells Scholar, as I understand it?

AK: Yes!

And you received your BA in 2006 in journalism and political science?

AK: That’s right. In both.

I’m wondering what’s a good way to attribute quotes to you now, because you have this new job. You’re the co-host of The Global Story podcast on the BBC, correct?

AK: Correct. Co-host of The Global Story…We [launched] September 3, 2025.

I saw that, and I’m planning on listening!

AK: Please do. We’re going to be a work in progress, I imagine, in the beginning, you know, as we sort of get our footing. But please do, and we certainly welcome feedback.

There was a quote on the BBC website. I think it was part of their announcement about your new role. You had mentioned how exciting it’s going to be to build a show from the ground up. I’m wondering what that entails. Have you ever had that kind of responsibility? What does that opportunity look like for you?

AK: It’s such an extraordinary opportunity. And I haven’t had that opportunity before—it’s so rare. I’ve worked within existing institutions, existing shows—some of them very well-established. But, here, we’re going to be, I think, getting a chance to experiment with the format, the sound, the texture—everything.

I was talking to my co-host the other day, and we were just swapping notes about this. There’s a tremendous amount of freedom when you’re launching a show from the ground up. We have a group of producers as well that they’ve brought on and we are all new to The Global Story. And they come from different walks of life.

To me, it is very exciting. It feels almost like working within a startup. Of course, within a very old, established, well-known institution like the BBC—but we’re a tiny little startup unit within that.

That sounds like the perfect sort of storm. And I mean “storm” in a good way ...

AK: I hope so. I mean, I’ve got to confess, you know, I have been with NPR—whether it’s NPR or WBUR public radio stations here within the U.S. system—for my entire career. So, it’s a big move. It’s a big change.

Let’s talk about that for a minute. You were most recently White House correspondent for NPR, and you co-hosted the NPR Politics Podcast. Is that going away, or are they just going to change hosts?

AK: The Politics Podcast is still there. I am no longer co-hosting it. Over the summer, I’ve been filling in—I’ve been co-hosting—Here and Now. I’ve been filling in as a guest host with them. They’re NPR’s midday show. It’s a co-production with WBUR, and they needed some help. They were down an anchor over the summer. I [did] it through August 1 before I [left] for the BBC.

You’ve been based in Washington, D.C. Will you have to move for this new job?

AK: No, I’ll continue to be based in D.C. for the BBC. There’s a [BBC] bureau in the United States. The Washington, D.C., office.

And my co-host will be based in London, which I think is really exciting, because the goal of the show is to try to connect the dots between what’s happening in the United States—with U.S. foreign policy and decisions—with the rest of the world and how the rest of the world may also be related to what’s going on here in the U.S.

I can see it as a kind of Venn diagram. You and your co-host are each in your own circle and, where you overlap, is this show.

AK: Yes, indeed. That’s the thinking. We’re living in a really interconnected time, and I think a time in which our politics and political coverage—and not just political coverage, but I think all of our coverage—would benefit from understanding what some of that connectivity is and how we relate to one another.

You mentioned in the BBC press release—there was a quote from you about the goal being “connecting the dots in our strange political times.” Are there some examples of dots you intend to connect that you’d like to share? Are there any stories that you’re really wanting to pounce on right away?

AK: I think what is exciting to me about this show is just the sheer abundance of stories to tell—whether we’re talking about tariffs, whether we’re talking about, you know, crackdowns on universities, whether we’re talking about stories around immigration, whether we’re talking about foreign policy, the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, how President Trump relates to different foreign leaders. I just think there’s so many, many stories. The way I see this is that there’s a lot about the world that relates to the United States, and a lot about the United States that impacts the rest of the world. We’re trying to tell those stories.

Well, I think that connects with my next question. There was a 2018 interview with you in IU’s The College magazine. It seems, at the time, you were talking about the type of journalism that you had been doing. And you said, “Many of us live in compartmentalized silos. And so, it’s deeply important for us to have more explanatory journalism. I’m lucky I get to do that.” When I hear that, I think, if we were compartmentalized then, it seems like it’s probably gotten quite a bit worse now! What are your thoughts about that quote of yours from way back when?

AK: Well, I wish I could confess that I can recall the entire circumstances of what I was saying. I think that I was referring to the fact that, for a few years actually, I was a national political correspondent who spent a lot of time traveling the country, talking to voters in different communities. And it was honestly one of the best jobs probably I’ve ever had, because I think I really got to understand the country. I also got to tell Americans about one another, which I think is also really powerful and important in a platform like NPR, in particular.

That’s one of the great assets we can provide, so that people understand their fellow Americans, right? Whether or not they can agree with them, they understand them. And, so, they see their perspectives. We spent a lot of time going out doing different types of stories. One series I was so proud of that we did was a big look during the 2018 midterms, I think it was, looking at non-voters. Because a majority of the electorate in the midterms, at least then, were non-voters. All of these stories were talking about midterms, midterms. And, so, we wanted to look at—what’s the largest percentage of people in the country, people who are not voting? And we looked at voting data. We decided on different communities based on that voter file data.

I worked on this project with two other reporters, and we went to all sorts of different communities—Texas, Las Vegas, West Virginia. It was amazing. Just the opportunity to sort of understand and help folks understand where other people are coming from. I think a lot of political coverage focuses on the people running [for] office, which I think certainly has value. I think that that is very important coverage. But I also think it’s very important to understand the electorate and the ... decisions that voters are making. And I got an opportunity to do that for several years.

But, in terms of what that quote was referring to, I really wish I could totally tell you, but I would say that I think it probably speaks to the fact that ... some people do not trust various news organizations, mainstream news sources, and that does worry me, if I’m honest.

I know the editorial rigor that goes into every story that I do and the editing. I think it’s really important, and I think there’s value in that. But I have thought a lot about ways in which we as journalists could be better, or more transparent, to encourage trust so that people understand where we’re coming from. Because I do think there has been a crisis of trust on both sides of the political aisle to be abundantly clear, right?

I think people don’t always trust mainstream news organizations. And then you see a lot of people go to ... social media or, you know, podcasters with a particular ideological bent. I think instead of seeking information people want affirmation. A lot of times, news is meant to be affirmation. And that really pains me as somebody who, in part, loved coming to the news to learn about different things and to hear things that I wasn’t aware of. It was information. It wasn’t a confirmation bias. It wasn’t meant to be affirmation. But I think about this a lot in terms of ways in which we could be better as journalists. I think about this even in terms of now launching a new podcast show. How do we, as the hosts, create trust with listeners?

Did anything surprise you about that experience of covering elections for more than a decade? Did you come away with any specific life lessons or maybe professional lessons as a result of that experience?

AK: I think covering elections, covering campaigns, has become much harder over the last decade. When I first, you know, would go out in various communities—I’m a visibly identifiable Muslim. I wear a headscarf, right? So, you know, I stand out, I would say, in some communities.

I found it, though, very easy to talk to people. Eventually to get people to open up, get them to warm up, and you’d have really interesting conversations. I think that actually became rather challenging, to be blunt, during that 2016 election cycle. But I still found even during that election cycle that you could get people to talk to you. I feel extraordinarily privileged that I’ve had the opportunity to cover so many elections and campaigns.

I also think that our politics has gotten much nastier. And so, yes, it takes a toll on you. I cannot deny that. Like, it takes a personal toll on you. People call you ugly names. There’s not a TV appearance hardly where you can go on—as I said, I’m someone who’s visibly, identifiably Muslim. I’m a contributor with ABC News. I appear on Washington Week, on PBS programs—and people just message you very unkind things.

We’re doing this interview because I’m from Indiana and I’m an IU alum and I will very proudly say, I think that throughout my childhood growing up as a Hoosier in Indiana, I think people are incredibly kind. There is—I say this all the time to people here on the East Coast—there’s a genuine Midwestern hospitality.

Covering campaigns and government politics over the last decade has made me really wonder how we all feel about each other as fellow Americans. This is an incredibly diverse country. I think it’s so special in some ways. I mean, there’s no other country, in my view, that is really as diverse racially, religiously, ethnically as the United States. And I think historically, we have always assumed this system of government—democracy as it is in this very pluralistic country—works because of a system of inertia, because it’s been working.

I’ve been thinking a lot, though, candidly, as the country turns 250 years old, like, what type of country will this be by the time my children grow up? Because there is a level of, I think, just nastiness, and I worry that we don’t all think we’re on the same team, as Americans. That worries me. It worries me a lot.

I wish I could add a more optimistic note, but I will say it really does worry me. We can talk about political polarization, media polarization, but part of any nation is believing [that] you want for your neighbor what you want for yourself, and that we’re all in this together on the same team. I’ve experienced a lot of unkind things over the last decade that makes me wonder if that’s, indeed, what all of my fellow Americans want.

[Americans] don’t have to agree, but you treat each other civilly and kindly and you look out for one another. And not to say that that doesn’t happen. To be abundantly clear, I think it does. But I think there is a nastiness to the ways in which people think that they can correspond and communicate with each other that really troubles me.

I don’t know if 10 years ago these things happened as much. Is this more of a recent development for you? And what about your colleagues? Have they also been experiencing this?

AK: I’ve talked to longtime reporters who’ve covered politics for years, and I do think it has changed over the last several years. The sense I get is, yes. Covering George W. Bush—that era of politics—as many disagreements as there may have been politically, the culture was very different around covering campaigns and covering politics.

Is there anything that I haven’t asked you about that you would like to mention?

AK: I credit so much of who I am and the type of journalist that I am to the experiences and education I had at IU. I mentioned that I covered campaigns. I’ve done a lot of work out in the country. I think I’ve really strived to ensure that I am a fair reporter to people across the political aisle, that I allow people to speak in their own words. And I think a lot of that understanding—of how there are all sorts of different Americans—came from my experiences at IU.

I think it made me a unique journalist, to be honest, in D.C. as well. If I may toot my own horn there for a second, I think it’s valuable to have come from the middle of the country, from a large and excellent public university. It’s valuable to come here to a town and cover politics where, yes, there are a lot of news outlets that don’t necessarily always give that first glance to people at public universities. I wish that they did more—particularly from middle-of-the-country states—because I think that we have tremendous insights and real, lived experiences that are really valuable.

Usually the last question I ask is, sort of, what’s next for you? But your BBC podcast is what’s next!

AK: Yes. It’s a big change. A big step, but it’s the kind of podcast I have wanted to build for a long time. I have specifically been really, really interested in building a show like this—news, narrative, and international issues, global affairs—in an attempt to help both the world understand America, and America understand the world, etc.

Well, I’m grateful for the work you’re doing and really appreciate your time.

AK: Thank you very much! I really appreciate you all reaching out as well.