🔗 Share this article

“Stuff occurs.” A mere phrase. That was enough for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most infamous murder of a reporter of the past ten years – 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 killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it stopped short of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the visit. But what was on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then pointed fingers at the victim. Prince Mohammed, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s spy agencies determined previously. 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, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful point for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued 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 forced established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his choosing, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an environment in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. My message there is the identical as my message for Trump: such events may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.