🔗 Share this article

“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump 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 the press, for the media – and for the truth.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence found in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was approved at the top echelons. An investigation led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were in agreement in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the visit. But what was evident at the presidential residence was worse than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. Prince Mohammed, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the media. Trump has defamed journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), berated them in public (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 news outlets he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has forced veteran news services out of the official briefing group for declining to use terminology of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an environment in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on file for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has created a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The effect on society is profound. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the identical as my one for the president: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.