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“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

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 crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to determine the homicide – 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 inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed penalties and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating 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 government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, Trump claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject low for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets 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 choosing, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media 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 targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for journalist killings has created a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of more than 200 journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The effect on the public is profound. Targeting reporters 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 safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. The statement there is the same as my message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.