🔗 Share this article

“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That was enough for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the late journalist was sedated and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were in agreement in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US imposed sanctions and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own spy agencies determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject low for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the facts – or for the press. Trump has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), berated them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for vital news services at domestically and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Israel, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the same as my one for the president: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.