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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 plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for journalism – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late journalist was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a brief period, nations were unified 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 Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime 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 honor Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” 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 lose their licenses.

He has pressured established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this data: a persistent failure to hold those accountable for journalist killings has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in Israel, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the same as my one for Trump: such events may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.