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“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward the press, for journalism – and for the facts.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the killing 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 abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was sedated and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a short time, nations were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed sanctions and travel restrictions in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, he asserted when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his nation’s intelligence services determined four years ago. 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 marks a fresh and shameful low for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. Trump has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist 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 connection with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has slashed financial support for essential public media at home and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“many individuals disliked that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the most lethal year on record for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for journalist killings has established a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in Israel, which is accountable for the killing of more than 200 journalists in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The impact on society is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its annual global journalism honors. The statement there is the same as my one for the president: these things may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.