Umar Cheema is an investigative reporter for the Pakistani newspaper The News. In 2008, he won a Daniel Pearl Journalism Fellowship, becoming the first Pearl fellow to work at The New York Times.He also attended London School of Economics as a Chevening Scholar (Chevening Scholarship) doing M.Sc. in Comparative Politics (Conflict studies).

On 4 September 2010, he was abducted, beaten, flogged and sexually assaulted by a group of assailants. They also shaved his head, eyebrows, and mustache.Cheema reported that his attackers asked him if he was trying to discredit the government with his reporting, leading him to believe that they were from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.He received CPJ International Press Freedom Awards in 2012.