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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 last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment had ordered the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (Prince Mohammed 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 59-year-old Khashoggi was sedated and dismembered – was signed off at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The US imposed sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had strongly criticized the visit. But what was on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the deceased. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a fresh and shameful low for a leader who has made little secret of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. Trump has smeared journalists (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the media event “fake news”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued media organizations for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he disapproves of to be shut down.

He has forced established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the most lethal year on record for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is profound. Targeting reporters are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its annual global journalism honors. The statement 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.