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“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the highest levels. An investigation led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject point for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. Trump has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has forced veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for vital news services at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Broader Implications

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 insignificant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals didn’t like that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the killing of more than 200 media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The effect on the public is deep. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our liberty to live freely and safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the same as my one for Trump: these things may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.