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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That was enough for Donald Trump to brush off what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.

The Context

The American leader’s dismissal of the murder of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The American spy agencies were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late journalist was sedated and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted penalties and travel restrictions in 2021 over the killing, although it refrained of sanctioning Prince Mohammed 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.

White House Remarks

Critics of the regime had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s intelligence services concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the facts – or for the press. He has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi 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 disgraced financier the convicted criminal), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his choosing, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at home and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered 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 tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been documenting this data: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has established a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are literally able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

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

On Thursday, CPJ meets for its annual International Press Freedom awards. My message at the event is the identical as my one for the president: these things may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.