🔗 Share this article

“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the past ten years – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward the press, for the media – and for the truth.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services 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 cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States imposed penalties and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, incidents occur.”

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 facts – or for the press. He has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for essential public media 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 killing – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for the press in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the same as my message for the president: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.