“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That was enough for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward the press, for the media – and for the truth.
The US president’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 ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)
The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old journalist was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.
For a brief period, nations were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted penalties and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it stopped short of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.
Critics of the government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, incidents occur.”
This marks a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the media. Trump has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), taken legal action against news outlets for large amounts of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he disapproves of to be shut down.
He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.
All of that has fostered an environment in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).
It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.
In no place is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.
The impact on the public is deep. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.
On Thursday, CPJ meets for its yearly global journalism honors. The statement at the event is the identical as my message for Trump: these things may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.
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