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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 infamous journalist killing of the past ten years – 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 US president’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Istanbul and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States enacted penalties and travel restrictions in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a new and abject point for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), 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 White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for vital news services at home and crucial free press abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an environment in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this information: a ongoing neglect to hold those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

In no place is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is deep. Attacks on journalists 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.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its annual global journalism honors. The statement at the event is the identical as my one for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.