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“Things happen.” Just two words. That was enough for the US president to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for the press, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissal of the killing of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, MBS – a man whom the CIA concluded in a recent assessment had orchestrated the abduction and murder of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old journalist was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, governments were in agreement in their condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The US imposed sanctions and visa bans in that year over the killing, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had strongly criticized the visit. But what was on display at the White House was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did Trump fete the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter history – and then blamed the victim. Prince Mohammed, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing 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 person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, incidents occur.”

Established Conduct

This represents a new and abject low for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. He has smeared 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), taken legal action against media organizations for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has forced established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use terminology of his choosing, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press abroad.

Broader Implications

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 insignificant (“things happen”) but acceptable (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the most lethal year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the press freedom organization has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

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

Societal Impact

The impact on the public is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual International Press Freedom awards. The statement there is the same as my message for Trump: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.