🔗 Share this article The President's Dismissal regarding Khashoggi Killing Signals a Disturbing Development. “Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the truth. The Context The American leader’s dismissive attitude 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 CIA concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.) The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to determine the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey 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, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions. Global Reactions For a short time, governments were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation. White House Remarks Critics of the regime had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman 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 low for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the media. Trump has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” 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 media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses. He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use terminology of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for vital news services at home and vital independent media abroad. Broader Implications All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that person”). It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions. In no place is this clearer than in Israel, which is responsible for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the past two years. Societal Impact The impact on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely. On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. My message at the event is the identical as my message for Trump: these things may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.