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“Incidents take place.” Just two words. That was enough for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is probably the most infamous murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for journalism – and for the truth.

The Context

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA concluded in a recent assessment had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to determine the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was sedated and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An investigation led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were unified in their criticism 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 nation has been gradually restoring itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the regime had roundly condemned the visit. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. The crown prince, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his nation’s intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a new and abject point for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. He has defamed journalists (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), scolded them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), sued media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the official briefing group for declining to use language of his choosing, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at home and crucial free press internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has created an atmosphere in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been documenting this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for journalist killings has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

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

Effect on Society

The effect on the public is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. The statement at the event is the identical as my message for the president: these things may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.