Journalism in the age of Trump: Free speech and the American responsibility

Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2 has had a reveraberting effect on politics and policy around the world andon the geopolitics of the Middle East as a whole and on Saudi-U.S. relations for years to come.

But as media attention remains fixated on the incident’s role in the geopolitics of the region, Saudi-U.S. relations and domestic Saudi politics, it’s easy to overlook what Khashoggi’s death fundamentally is: an attack on free speech.

A Turkish investigation deemed the Saudis’ short-term motive for killing Khashoggi to be preventing the publication of a story about the nation’s usage of chemical weapons on civilians. A CIA assessment  based on messages from Saudi inner circles concluded that Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, likely ordered the killing.

The country’s choice of simply eternally silencing their critics reflects a greater trend worldwide — a stark reminder of the endangered status of journalists. The murder should not be seen as just another casualty of an increasingly turbulent Middle East: Instead, it is a wake-up call for the decline of free speech worldwide.

As many Americans begin to frown upon journalism in the age of Trump, other places have already begun to cease toleration of it. In this waning of media — of free speech — rides the rise of strong-men leadership.

In Turkey, where Khashoggi was murdered, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a strained relation with journalists, to say the least. During a state visit to France, Erdoğan supposedly spat at French reporters and pronounced journalists to be the “gardeners” of terrorism. According to Stockholm Center For freedom, Turkish prisons currently hold 234 journalists for reporting anti-governmental messages, often on a charge of supposed connection with terrorists.

Farther north, as Eastern Europe has continued to shift toward the far-right regimes, crackdowns on the media have either worsened or commenced. In Hungary, prime minister Viktor Orban tightly grasps the country’s media, while in Poland, the Law and Justice Party implemented state control of public broadcasting. Increasingly nationalist agendas have coalesced control of the media and power in the hands of the few, pushing these countries in the direction of already firmly established dictatorships like Belarus and Russia.

On the other side of the world, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s stance is no better. The Phillipines is often described as the worst place for journalists to work in South East Asia, and it is so bad that Duterte has gone on record calling for the deaths of journalists.

China’s Xi Jinping earlier this year cemented his dictatorial power by abolishing term limits on the Chinese presidency. Coupled with this power grab, widespread attacks on media were launched, with bans on words like “coronation,” “empire” and “dynastical.” Government censors on the image of Winnie the Pooh and on the letter “n” turned into widespread laughing stocks of “Emperor Xi”’s policy.

More recently, Brazil’s far-right president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has adopted the Trump-like stance on journalism, gaining popularity with fiery nationalistic rhetoric and attacks on the press. His followers have repeatedly assaulted reporters and journalists both physically and through social media.

The American responsibility

Amid a worldwide decline in free speech, Trump’s war against the media is only worsening the issue. Instead of defending what is often called the fourth branch of government, he throws false accusations of deceits and fake news.

Trump’s words have unleashed a firestorm against the media both domestically and internationally.

In August, a California man was arrested for threatening to shoot journalists of the Boston Globe after the newspaper questioned President Trump’s actions in an editorial, quoting the President in accusing the news source of being “the enemy of the people.”

In October, a zealous Florida Trump supporter attempted to mail several pipe bombs to multiple critics of Trump, including the Clintons, former President Obama, Joe Biden and John Brennan, though the package marked for Brennan was sent to CNN.

Khashoggi’s death only further underscores Trump’s already spotty track record when it comes to free speech.

His response to the death has been underwhelming, especially as the “leader of the free world.” Trump took to Twitter calling the entire incident “fake news” on Oct. 19. And although he eventually acknowledged the incident itself as well as the Saudi involvement in it, Trump proceeded to greenlight a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Even after the CIA’s conclusion that the Saudi Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi's killing, Trump released a statement saying that “the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of [America].”

While threats to free speech around the world, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, can be excused as outside of the American sphere of influence, failure to adequately address such a blatant disregard for free speech by one of America’s closest allies in the Middle-East and globally is utterly unacceptable. If Saudi Arabia is not censured for Khashoggi’s death, America will have forfeited its title as “leader of the free world” in all but name.

In this anti-media time, this age of Trump, journalism remains the bastion against the rise of strong-men leaders. As the so-called leader of the free world, Trump should be upholding its importance; instead of stoking the flames of anti-media sentiment, he should be quelling it.

Trump fails to see this imperative on free speech, and given his resume of actions, Trump won’t be changing his rhetoric on the media anytime soon. And while Trump’s actions and words may be influencing this issue, in the end the mantle still falls to the public: Only if the public’s faith remain in the media can American continue to serve as a leader of the free world.