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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 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 facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a recent assessment had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

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

International Response

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it stopped short of sanctioning Prince Mohammed 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

Opponents 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 honor the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject point for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured established media out of the official briefing group for refusing to use language of his choosing, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals didn’t like that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for journalists in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for journalist killings has created a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers 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 over two hundred media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the same as my one for the president: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.