First, the latest on Khashoggi comes from the Associated Press:

A Turkish prosecutor says Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered and disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan’s office also said Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no “concrete results” despite “good-willed efforts” by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.

When Post reporter Philip Rucker asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders if any action was being taken, “actual action” as he dryly put it, she deflected. No, the United States has yet to take action in defense of a journalist slaughtered in a diplomatic office. And last week, the White House initially ignored or forgot about pipe bombs sent to CNN.

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It’s not a safe time to be a journalist, in case you haven’t noticed. Earlier this month, the executive director of Freedom House, Michael J. Abramowitz (who previously worked for The Post) put out a written statement: “The apparent murder of Khashoggi by the Saudi government is a major escalation of the government’s attacks on critics who dare to defy Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Sultan. The Crown Prince is sending a message that Saudis who criticize his policies are not safe, that no international border can protect them. This is a grave attack against journalists and press freedom in every country of the world.”

The attacks, imprisonment and murder of journalists around the world are carried out by or for regimes that parrot and take comfort from Trump’s “enemy of the people” rhetoric. Freedom House’s 2018 report documented a worldwide trend: “Democracy is in crisis. The values it embodies — particularly the right to choose leaders in free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and the rule of law — are under assault and in retreat globally.” A significant aspect of the trend is the intimidation and silencing of journalists who report on abuse of power, corruption and human rights violations.

“Global press freedom declined to its lowest point in 13 years in 2016 amid unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies and new moves by authoritarian states to control the media, including beyond their borders,” Freedom House’s 2017 report on press freedom explained. Trump “disparaged the press, rejecting the news media’s role in holding governments to account for their words and actions. Officials in more authoritarian settings such as Turkey, Ethiopia, and Venezuela used political or social unrest as a pretext for new crackdowns on independent or opposition-oriented outlets.” And of course, “Authorities in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia extended restrictive laws to online speech, or simply shut down telecommunications services at crucial moments, such as before elections or during protests.”

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The Committee to Protect Journalists documents that in 2018 alone 45 journalists have been killed around the world, 262 were imprisoned in 2017 and 59 remain missing.

One reason, you see, why journalists get upset when the president undermines the First Amendment, uses the same “enemy of the people” phrase that totalitarians do, threatens to pull a news outlet’s “license” and takes actual measures through the instruments of government power to chill free speech is because — as with anti-Semitism and racism — words matter. They have life-or-death consequences for journalists worldwide, whether Trump intends that or not.

The free press is the only private business recognized in the Constitution, and for good reason. Authoritarians invariably try to achieve a monopoly on facts and truth to enable them to abuse power, and that requires the press to be delegitimized, intimidated and, in places around the world, killed or imprisoned. It’s the safeguard for the rest of our freedoms that protect all of us — and not just entertainers and journalists.

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I don’t think journalists are narcissists generally — at least not like Hollywood stars (as I know from years of working there in my lawyer days). I don’t think that Jane Reporter thinks Trump’s insults are aimed at her specifically. To the contrary, virtually every real journalist reporting on politics understands the audience for Trump’s press attacks is much wider, and that’s the problem. Moreover, the media does not cover attacks on the First Amendment exclusively or even predominantly. They cover corruption, voter suppression, immigration, the uptick in racism and anti-Semitism, gun violence and more. (Americans have responded to Trump in part by increasing subscriptions to reliable news outlets, not to read about the press but to keep abreast of what Trump is doing.) If there are one too many stories or confrontations now and then on Trump’s effort to undermine the free press, I think Americans concerned about the preservation of democracy are fine with that.