Karen Attiah, the global opinions editor at The Washington Post, recruited Jamal Khashoggi to the newspaper about a year ago to write on the Arab world. In recent days, Ms. Attiah, 32, has led a chorus of grief, protest and demands for answers about the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist and Virginia resident last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. She spoke to The New York Times on Thursday about her work with Mr. Khashoggi, the international furor over his disappearance, and how an editor’s responsibility to a writer does not cease after death. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q. How did you and Jamal meet?

A. I started at The Post in 2014. Before that, I had been a freelance stringer for The Associated Press in Curaçao. I covered everything from elections to smuggling ring heists to the winner of the election I covered being gunned down on a beach in broad daylight.

I decided freelancing was hard, and I needed health care. At The Post, my job has been to recruit voices from around the world. About a year ago, we were seeing a lot of reports on the crackdowns by Mohammed bin Salman. Jamal was often quoted giving insights into what was happening, but I hadn’t seen any full-length op-eds by him. I got his WhatsApp number. His first email to me was:

Hello Karen, thanks for asking me to write. I’m under so much pressure from family members and friends to stay silent. But this isn’t right. We have enough Arab failing states. I don’t want my country to be one too. I hope this is what you’re looking for. Excuse my not-so-good English, but I’m sure you can fix that. All the best, Jamal.

His first column for us blew up. It spiked in traffic. That’s when we realized we had a force on our hands. At the time, I didn’t know that was his coming-out piece: his first time speaking in English on a platform as big as The Post about being in exile, about why he felt he had to leave. We asked him to contribute more articles. He wrote back:

Really honored to have this invitation to write in your great paper after I got banned from writing in Al-Hayat where I had a weekly column for seven years. I’m also delighted to have you as colleagues and friends. I’ll take you up on your offer and write as freely as I wish any Arab writer could write in his home country. I’m sure my words will be more powerful in The Washington Post.

To be honest, I hadn’t really gone through our old emails until now. Because it’s just been hard.

You formally hired Jamal last December as a global opinion columnist. Was he excited about it?

He was really pushing me: ‘When is the press release? When is the press release?’ He was really, really proud and honored to have that title.