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“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That was enough for Donald Trump to brush off what is probably the most infamous murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for the media – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the CIA found in a recent assessment had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the journalist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi consulate 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 similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, governments were unified in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom 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 on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a new and abject point for a leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. He has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the question about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), scolded them in open settings (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the official briefing group for declining to use terminology of his preference, and he has gutted financial support for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an environment in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their victimization – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but tolerated (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on record for journalists in the over three decades the press freedom organization has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable 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 persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred journalists in the recent period.

Societal Impact

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

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