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“Things happen.” A mere phrase. That was enough for Donald Trump to brush off what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA concluded in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old journalist was sedated and dismembered – was approved at the highest levels. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a brief period, nations were in agreement in their condemnation of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States imposed penalties and visa bans in 2021 over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

White House Remarks

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the visit. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s spy agencies concluded previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a new and abject low for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has defamed journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

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 funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that 2024 was the most lethal year on record for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 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 actually able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is deep. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ meets for its yearly global journalism honors. My message there is the identical as my message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.