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“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most notorious murder of a reporter of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward the press, for journalism – and for the facts.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a press conference with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a recent assessment had ordered the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has rejected accusations.)

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 Khashoggi was drugged and dismembered – was approved at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

International Response

For a brief period, governments were in agreement in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US imposed sanctions and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it stopped short 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 ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, was unaware about the murder – in clear opposition to what his country’s own spy agencies determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people disliked that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Pattern of Behavior

This represents a new and abject low for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his disdain for the facts – or for the press. Trump has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for media groups he disapproves of to be shut down.

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

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered an environment in which reporters are clearly more vulnerable in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“a lot of people didn’t like that person”).

It is no surprise that that year was the deadliest year on file for journalists in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to hold those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

In no place is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is deep. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are attacks on our rights to know and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists meets for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. The statement at the event is the same as my message for the president: such events may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.