🔗 Share this article

“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off what is probably the most infamous murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.

The Context

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 US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted penalties and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it stopped short of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was on display 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 the facts – and then pointed fingers at the victim. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject low for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. He 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 “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the official briefing group for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“many individuals didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this data: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has created a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are actually able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in Israel, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is deep. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our rights to know and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its annual global journalism honors. My message there is the identical as my one for Trump: these things may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.