🔗 Share this article

“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment 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 sedated and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s spy agencies concluded previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This marks a fresh and shameful point for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the media. Trump has smeared journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the media event “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), taken legal action against media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his choosing, and he has gutted financial support for vital news services at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an environment 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 no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for the press in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of more than 200 media workers in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The impact on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our rights to know and on our freedom to live freely and safely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the identical as my message for the president: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.