The President's Casual Remarks on Khashoggi Killing Signals a New Low.

“Stuff occurs.” Just two words. That’s all it took for the US president to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the facts.

The Context

The US president’s dismissive attitude of the murder of well-known reporter the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a 2021 report had ordered the kidnap and killing of the journalist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The American spy agencies were not the only ones to conclude the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Istanbul and in which the late journalist was drugged and dismembered – was signed off at the highest levels. An inquiry led by former UN expert, the UN investigator, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of penalizing Prince Mohammed himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the final confirmation of that rehabilitation.

White House Remarks

Opponents of the government had strongly criticized the meeting. But what was on display at the presidential residence was more alarming than could have been anticipated. Not only did the president fete Prince Mohammed but he effectively rewrote history – and then blamed the deceased. Prince Mohammed, he claimed when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own spy agencies determined previously. Moreover, Trump said: “Many individuals disliked that person 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 leader who has made little secret of his contempt for the facts – or for the media. Trump has smeared journalists (he called a news network, whose reporter asked the question about Khashoggi at the media event “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his connection 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 doesn’t like to lose their licenses.

He has pressured veteran news services out of the White House press pool for refusing to use language of his preference, and he has slashed funding for vital news services at domestically and crucial free press internationally.

Broader Implications

All of that has fostered 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 didn’t like that person”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this data: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has created a environment without consequences in which journalists’ killers are literally able to get away with murder and so continue to do so.

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

Effect on Society

The impact on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are attacks on our entitlement to information and on our freedom to exist without fear and securely.

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