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“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most infamous murder of a reporter of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for the media – and for the truth.

The Context

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed sanctions and travel restrictions in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was on display at the White House was worse than could have been anticipated. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject point for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the media. Trump has smeared journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about Khashoggi at the media event “false information”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued media organizations for large amounts of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has pressured established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has created an environment in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has created a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are actually able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

In no place is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of more than 200 media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The impact on society is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

This week, CPJ gathers for its annual 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 cease.