🔗 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 infamous journalist killing of the last decade – 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 killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed sanctions and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump honor Prince Mohammed 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 country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a leader 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 journalist asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in open settings (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 vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he disapproves of to be shut down.

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

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 killing – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that person”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

This week, CPJ gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the identical as my one for the president: these things may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.