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“Things happen.” Just two words. That was enough for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late journalist was sedated and dismembered – was approved at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, nations were in agreement in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States imposed penalties and travel restrictions in 2021 over the killing, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. The crown prince, Trump claimed when asked, was unaware about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked 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 low for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. He has smeared journalists (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the inquiry about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), berated 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 media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to be shut down.

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

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an environment in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the over three decades 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 literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 media workers in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is deep. Attacks on journalists 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 safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly global journalism honors. My message at the event is the same as my message for the president: such events may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.