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“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his contempt for the press, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late journalist was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a short time, nations were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US imposed penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject low for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has smeared journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced veteran news services out of the official briefing group for refusing to use terminology of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on file for the press in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to hold those responsible for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are literally able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The effect on society is deep. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and securely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the identical as my message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.