🔗 Share this article

“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist 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 orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it stopped short of sanctioning Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

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 honor Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. Prince Mohammed, Trump asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject point for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the facts – or for the press. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “false information”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he disapproves of to be shut down.

He has pressured established media out of the official briefing group for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for vital news services at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“many individuals didn’t like that person”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for reporter murders has established 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 accountable for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the same as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.