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“Things happen.” Just two words. That was enough for the US president to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward the press, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing 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 occurred in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late journalist was sedated and dismembered – was signed off at the highest levels. An inquiry led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump honor Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful low for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. He has smeared journalists (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against media organizations for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, 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 terminology of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at home 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 targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has created a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are literally able to escape punishment 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 past two years.

Societal Impact

The effect on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our liberty to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its annual global journalism honors. My message at the event is the same as my one for the president: such events may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they cease.