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“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump 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 contempt for the press, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had ordered the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to determine the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The US imposed sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning 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 rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Opponents of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then blamed the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, incidents occur.”

Established Conduct

This marks a new and abject point for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the facts – or for the media. Trump has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “false information”), berated them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on file for the press in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been documenting this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for reporter murders has established a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Israel, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

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