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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward the press, for journalism – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old journalist was sedated and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, nations were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed penalties and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

White House Remarks

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals disliked 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 no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for large amounts of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured established media out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for the press in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to hold those accountable for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is deep. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly global journalism honors. My message there is the same as my message for the president: such events may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.