The President's Dismissal on Khashoggi Killing Signals a Disturbing Development.

“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That was enough for the US president to brush off what is probably the most notorious 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.

The Context

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old journalist was sedated and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States imposed penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring 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 roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject point for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. He has smeared journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question 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 media organizations for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language 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 created an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this information: a ongoing neglect to hold those responsible for reporter murders has established a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are actually able to get away with murder 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 media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our liberty to exist without fear 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 message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.