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“Things happen.” Just two words. That was enough for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the truth.

The Context

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, governments were unified in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The US imposed 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 gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the presidential residence was worse 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 claimed when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a fresh and shameful low for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), taken legal action against media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, 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 refusing to use terminology of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on file for the press in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been documenting this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for journalist killings has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 journalists in the past two years.

Societal Impact

The effect 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 freedom to live freely and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the identical as my message for the president: such events may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.