🔗 Share this article

“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

The Context

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to determine the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late journalist was sedated and cut apart – 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, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter history – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful point for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has smeared journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection 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 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 slashed financial support for vital news services at home and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has created a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the killing of more than 200 media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on society is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the same as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.