The President's Dismissal on Journalist's Murder Signals a Disturbing Development.

“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for journalism – and for the facts.

The Context

The US president’s dismissal 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 found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which occurred 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 investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States imposed sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom 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 strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful point for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about Khashoggi at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to be shut down.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

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

It is no surprise 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 tracking this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The effect on society is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

This week, CPJ gathers for its annual 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 cease.