Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Record 129 press members killed in 2025; Israel responsible for 2/3 of deaths
- ‘We returned from hell’: Palestinian journalists recount torture in Israeli prisons
- 2025 journalist jailings remain stubbornly high; harsh prison conditions pervasive
- Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy
- 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel
- In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists
- Haiti, Israel most likely to let journalists’ murders go unpunished, CPJ 2024 impunity index shows
- No justice for journalists targeted by Israel despite strong evidence of war crime
- On Edge: What the US election could mean for journalists and global press freedom
Reporter Without Borders
WaPo Publisher Responds to Trump on Khashoggi Murder
Khashoggi speaking in Washington, DC in March 2018. Photo: April Brady/Project on Middle East Democracy/Wikimedia Commons.
Washington Post Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan made the following statement concerning President Donald Trump’s reaction to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
“President Trump’s response to the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a betrayal of long-established American values of respect for human rights and the expectation of trust and honesty in our strategic relationships. He is placing personal relationships and commercial interests above American interests in his desire to continue to do business as usual with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
The Central Intelligence Agency has thoroughly investigated the murder of this innocent journalist and concluded with high confidence that it was directed by the Crown Prince. If there is reason to doubt the findings of the CIA, President Trump should immediately make that evidence public.
President Trump is correct in saying the world is a very dangerous place. His surrender to this state-ordered murder will only make it more so. An innocent man, brutally slain, deserves better, as does the cause of truth and justice and human rights.
In this failure of leadership from President Trump, it now falls to Congress to stand up for America’s true values and lasting interests.”