Interrogation gone wrong. Accidental death. Assassination. Take your pick. It doesn’t really matter. Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and apparent death in Turkey is another ominous sign that journalism is under siege. Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, “was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month, according to US and Turkish officials.”
Turkish police, as of this writing, say a search of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul “found evidence” that “Khashoggi was killed there” by a team of Saudi agents. The Saudis denied involvement, though there were reports that the Saudi government might acknowledge the writer was killed at the consulate, perhaps as part of a botched interrogation.”
Khashoggi’s death follows the rape and killing of Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova, a death initially assumed to have been retaliation for her work on stories about corruption in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government does not appear to have been involved — German prosecutors say it was a sexual assault and had no apparent political motivation. But Bulgaria is a “country where graft and lack of press freedoms are endemic,” which led to widespread condemnation when Marinova’s body was discovered.
There have been at least 67 journalists and media workers killed through Oct. 6, which does not include Khashoggi, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, after 74 were killed last year and an average of 89 have been killed over the last 10 years. Most were killed in war zones and the motives for many of the others cannot be confirmed. But it is clear that journalists are in the cross-hairs of autocratic regimes and drug cartels for one reason and one reason alone — they were just doing their jobs.
Journalists provide a bulwark against corruption and autocracy. This is going to sound cliche, but it’s true: We shine light in dark places, uncover truths the powerful wish hidden, and provide a platform for the powerless to speak. We don’t always live up to these lofty aspirations. We can be distracted by celebrity and power, but without an aggressive press we would be doomed.
Enter Donald Trump. The president’s response to Khashoggi’s disappearance has presented a moving target, a jumble of empty words and rationalizations designed to let the Saudis off the hook. This is partly about the money — he has talked on more than one occasion about weapons deals that will generate significant revenue for American companies. But it’s also a logical extension of his own disdain for the media.
Trump has used the media as a punching bag and applause line — it’s all “fake news,” except for Fox, and the press, as an institution, is an “enemy of the people.”
Trump’s rhetorical assaults on the American press exist on a dangerous continuum with Khashoggi’s death and the deaths of journalists in the European Union, the Middle East, Mexico and elsewhere. They are not outliers. Trump is an autocrat at heart, an admirer of autocrats, and someone who has developed a cult of personality to support him. He encourages a level of animosity toward the press that goes beyond anything other presidents have engendered. The New York Times reported on a July rally in Tampa where “several journalists described an atmosphere of hostility that felt particularly hard-edge.” Trump then “tweeted out a video of his supporters jeering (CNN reporter Jim) Acosta, along with an approving comment from his son Eric: ‘#truth.’”
Then, Oct. 18, Trump celebrated an act of violence against a reporter on US soil — to cheers and laughter from his supporters. At a rally in Missoula, Mont., he commended Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting reporter Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, who had asked the candidate about the Republican health-care bill..
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump told the cheering crowd at the rally.
His supporters might try to say otherwise, this is the real Donald Trump when it comes to the press, and its why the Khashoggi killing should worry American journalists. Trump has smashed too many norms and fanned too many flames to assume he’ll come to our defense if things hit the fan.
Hank Kalet is a poet and journalist in New Jersey. Email grassroots@comcast.net; Twitter @kaletjournalism.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2018
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