“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is probably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.
The US president’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came in a press conference with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)
The US intelligence services were not the only ones to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard reached similar conclusions.
For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudia Arabia’s actions. The US imposed sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the killing, although it stopped short of sanctioning Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself since – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.
Critics of the regime had roundly condemned the visit. But what was on display at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”
This marks a new and abject low for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has smeared journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), berated them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for eye watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.
He has forced veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media abroad.
All of that has created 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 acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).
It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) more than 30 years of documenting this data: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for journalist killings has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.
No where is this more evident than in Israel, which is responsible for the killing of more than 200 journalists in the past two years.
The impact on society 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 live freely and safely.
On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the same as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.
