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“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off 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 American leader’s dismissal of the murder of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to determine the homicide – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Istanbul and in which the late journalist was drugged and cut apart – was approved at the top echelons. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were unified in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the visit. But what was evident 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 pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a fresh and shameful point for a president who has made little secret of his disdain for the truth – or for the media. He has defamed reporters (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “false information”), scolded them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his connection with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against media organizations for large amounts of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has pressured established media out of the official briefing group for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

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

It is unsurprising that 2024 was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

In no place is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the killing of more than 200 media workers in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The impact on society is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our liberty to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the identical as my one for the president: such events may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.