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“Stuff occurs.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to brush off what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

Background Details

The American leader’s dismissive attitude of the killing of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has rejected accusations.)

The US intelligence services were not the sole entities to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the top echelons. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a short time, nations were unified in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States enacted penalties and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it stopped short of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

White House Remarks

Opponents of the government had roundly condemned the visit. But what was evident at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote history – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, 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 facts – or for the media. He has defamed reporters (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the question about the journalist at the media event “fake news”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), sued media organizations for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, 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 terminology of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and crucial free press abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) 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 ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for reporter murders has established a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are actually able to escape punishment and so persist in these actions.

In no place is this more evident than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is accountable for the killing of over two hundred journalists in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and safely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its yearly global journalism honors. My message there is the identical as my message for the president: such events may happen. But it is our responsibility to make sure they do not.